One year and two weeks ago, videogame icon Shigeru Miyamoto announced that Nintendo had teamed up with Illumination Studios to create a Super Mario Bros. movie. People were excited! Hopped up on magic Mario mushrooms, even! No spiked shells could touch us!
Then it was announced that Chris Pratt would be voicing Mario! People were, um … how shall we put this?
Less excited? Fascinated? Perhaps striving to live in hope?
But now we have the first trailer!
And, well, that’s a thing that happened. It sure looks great. Jack Black gives good Bowser. The penguins are far cuter than any Mario penguins ever dreamt of being. Seriously:
But that’s not Mario. That’s not even an attempt at being Mario. That’s just … Chris Pratt Chris Pratting.
The thing about Mario voices is that they’re weird. They don’t totally make sense because nothing about this world makes sense. We don’t want it to make sense, really. There are mushrooms that make you bigger and mushrooms that give you life and, like, a raccoon suit that lets you fly? These concepts do not employ logic! Neither do the characters’ voices! Just let it be weird!
And let Mario have his proper ass! Quoth Polygon: “Sorry, Mario, your ass is in another castle.”
Anyway. The rest of the cast includes Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, the perpetually screaming Charlie Day as Luigi, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. The masterful Charles Martinet, who has voiced not just brothers-of-the-plunger Mario and Luigi, but also their evil counterparts Wario and Waluigi, will crop up in many cameo roles in the film.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie will take a pipe into theaters on April 7, 2023.
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