Brooklyn plumbers, Mario and Luigi, are attempting to start their own business and move up in the world when they are accidentally transported into the Mushroom Kingdom where they end up getting separated. Mario meets with Princess Peach and an anthropomorphic mushroom named Toad and set out to find Mario's brother, Luigi, and save the world from a ruthless fire-breathing Koopa named Bowser. I had such a great time with this movie. Going into it, I was just expecting a fun adventure filled with lots of fan service, bright colours and fast-paced action which is exactly what I got and I loved it. Having grown up with some of the Nintendo games like: Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion and Super Mario 3D World, I had a great deal of nostalgia for this franchise and was so excited to see a combination of all my favourite games and experiences brought into one heavily oriented fan service flick. Seeing characters, appearances, worlds, karts, power-ups, and hearing musical cues and sound effects brought back all those happy memories. Even being able to point out all the little background details was entertaining enough for me. The greatest highlight of all was the animation. I mean how can a film like this look so good? I was blown away by how clean the animation was throughout, from the flow of all the movement to the reflections, and vibrant colours that pop out in every scene and how accurate all aspects of the film are to their original counterparts. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the voice actors who bring our characters to life. Each one does a fabulous job in their respective roles but most notably Jack Black as Bowser. Such a well-casted actor for the villainous role who brought a well-suited voice and so many comedic moments throughout, especially some song sequences that crack me up like when he sings a song about his love for Princess Peach. Hilarious and very catchy. Controversial choices like Chris Pratt as Mario turned out to be fine and I had no issue with his portrayal of the character. I did like that the original voice actor, Charles Martinet, does voice one character in the movie, which is neat. We also get to see many other characters from this vast world like Donkey Kong who brings much more comic relief and cool moments to the story. Brian Tyler composed the soundtrack for this feature and did a fantastic job with bringing so many iconic songs and remixing them into even more energetic scores which perfectly matched the tone and feel of the movie. The film also uses many 80s songs from Holding Out For a Hero, Take On Me, Thunderstruck and more, which are incredible pieces although I don't think they matched the scenes they were used in. I love each song they used and I was so pumped to hear them but it felt a little wrong and kind of just random but that's only a nitpick nothing totally distracting. Speaking of nitpicks, I had only two others with one being the lack of Luigi in the story. It is after all called the Mario Brothers so I would have loved to see more of the two together for more of the movie, not leaving Luigi imprisoned for the most part. My other nitpick is at times I found some elements to be a bit predictable. I noticed it a couple of times but I brushed them off in the end as it wasn't that important, I knew what I would be getting going into it after all and wasn't disappointed. I think my favourite part of the film had to be the rainbow road chase sequence, being a huge fan of those games more than any other. It was so exciting that was filled with references to the game like the blue shell, etc and there was just the right amount of action and spectacles. I also loved the final battle, which had so many epic payoffs, phenomenal music and that continuous energetic style. Overall, I had such a blast with this animated adventure story that was a perfect homage to everything in the Mario franchise for all fans to enjoy. It makes for perfect family viewing and is definitely ideal viewing for kids without a doubt, especially if they love these characters. I would highly recommend this superb comedic fantasy for all who want to relax and seek easygoing entertainment.
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