Super Mario Brothers Movie

[Don]

Watched it last weekend and I totally don't get why there is the critics hate. I can only guess people are trying to be contrarian except when like a majority of critics do it, it just looks dumb when reality is totally different. I was worried it could be one of those easter egg movie where nothing would actually make sense unless you look up everything in a wikipedia but that's clearly not it. If you have some vague idea of what Mario is about it's fine. I didn't get all the references either but it's not central to the story anyway, though I did see one review complaining about why they're racing go karts on a rainbow.

A fairly common criticism seems to be about the plot, but just because they don't spend the whole time talking about stuff doesn't mean there isn't a story. I guess you can say there aren't really plot twists but this is a Mario movie, so I don't think people are expecting Luigi to pull a mask off and revealed he's actually Bowser or whatever critics think is a good plot twist these days.

[Julius Seeker]

First: I haven’t seen the film, and have not really paid any attention to it, but the negative reaction doesn’t surprise me one bit. I also doubt it’s going to have much impact on its success—it’s already closing in on 1 billion USD after just over two weeks, making it a contender for the most successful animated film in history.

I’d say the vast majority of people being hyperbolic and overly dramatic in their negativity are pessimists trying to sound important. By being negative toward tons of stuff, they’re trying to sound like they have superior taste because they’re sensitive to flaws. The vast majority of the time they’re nitpicking—making a mountain out of a molehill. But, there are a lot of pessimists on the Internet who seek out that kind of content and are impressed with people who have these negative views on everything (often with injected conspiracy theories, like “the woke mob is taking our Transformers!”. There are enough grift buyers that that these professional pessimists have become rich by basically shitting over other people’s or studio’s work, that is most often objectively great… in fact, it seems to be that the more objectively great something is the more shit it gets—The Shining, Avatar, and Titanic to name a few, each one a ground breaking film, shit all over in their times (note: Titanic and Avatar were both insanely successful financially and critically, but were basically Lucifer as far as Internet pessimists go).

I’m not talking about AVGN. Those videos are parody of nerds for entertainment. A lot of the games he bashes he gladly plays in livestream. The character seems partially inspired by himself (as a critic) and his friend and former producer, Mike Matei, who was known for his authentic game rage and angry opinions.

Bottom line, everything is much more entertaining when viewing from an optimistic lens. Now, that doesn’t mean people will enjoy everything. But for the most part, almost every TV show and film is of a fairly high quality and is fairly easy to enjoy for fans. It’s rare that something is genuinely bad and gets through the filters. In the end, it’s a matter of taste. For me, I’m not a big fan of the overused heroes journey film formula, or “three act structure” as it’s often branded now, but there are a few I like for other reasons (such as aesthetic).

As a note, a lot of the time films or books are described as “three acts” when it’s not the case. Three acts are basically: Act 1 inciting incident to threshold determining the main conflict; Act 2 is rising action; Act 3 is the all is lost moment, the climax, and resolution of the conflict. There’s such a faith in the idea of the universality of the three act structure that people force it onto describing stories that are (in reality) significantly more complex than that, or don’t even follow the structure. The reason why anime films are often more interesting than Western animated films is because their plots are more complex. Western animated films often do follow the three act structure to some degree. Anime, on the other hand, often doesn’t have an inciting incident, but rather start with the introduction of characters and implied or expressed motivations. While there’s often a hook, or some kind of event early on, it’s usually not a driving factor for the plot so much as a way to show the character in crisis. The equivalent to a threshold is often an inevitable event that was already scheduled to happen: Kiki is old enough to travel, and now she’s doing what all witches do, and traveling. Princess Mononoke is one of the rare films from Ghibli that has something like a proper inciting incident (Ashitaka gets cursed and now must leave), but that’s about where the similarities end; the story from then on out is about establishing paradigms and then subverting them with a twist—which is a lot of what anime plotting seems to do, although usually one big twist or chaos event, rather than the 3 or 4 that Princess Mononoke had. Apart from Hitchcock films back in the 1950s, mid-film twists are actually fairly rare in Western film, instead opting to have them at the end. Another difference with the three act structure is there’s usually an early “world” that is thrown into chaos and then it becomes a new world at the end of the film; this chaos moment often occurs toward the end of the anime film (Akira), or sometimes it occurs multiple times (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away). But anyway, this side note has become excessively long and is off topic, so I’ll stop.

[Don]

There are obviously a lot of typical negative reviews that are just like negative for the sake of negative, but I saw some that was like 'well it's not as good as Toy Story 2 (or 3) because there wasn't a lesson about how you had to leave your toys behind when you grow up' It's like yes, Mario doesn't talk about how you might be too old to be playing Mario Kart games. Why would anyone expect that to happen in a Mario movie? Might as well say winning is too cheap because it's not like Lord of the Rings where a lot of important guys died to bring down Sauron and at least Toad should've got killed by Bowser to build up the villain.

I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say if this actually happened in a Mario movie that'd also be a terrible movie, because it's also possible to get that to work, but getting mad at the movie not being like other movies that's pretty much nothing like it seems like you're worried your movie's going to get dethroned because Mario Bros Movie is likely to have a higher sales. Might as well complain Mario Brothers doesn't have lightsabers so no way it can live up to Star Wars.

[Julius Seeker]

I think that irrelevant criteria is along the same lines of negativity as nitpicking. A lot of this comes from the same “I need something negative” place. This “there’s no moral of the story like Toy Story” was type criticism is of zero value. It’s not constructive—if it were to be considered such, it boils down to a difference of opinion and vision.

I think most people are quiet optimists, and viewing the film from a more optimistic viewpoint will avoid that sort of criticism. But, a lot of critics are pessimistic because there’s a big market in trashing and disrespecting other people’s work. This is something various comedy shows have made fun of and/or satirized in the past. From Mel Brooks, to Kevin Smith, to the Simpsons, to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Personally, I think it’s absolutely fine to not like something. The vast majority of the time people don’t like a film or show with any degree of honesty comes down to a difference of taste. There are flaws (real and perceived) that can be used to rationalize it, but usually those are red herrings, as taste is often irrational. Trying to rationalize it might actually be a bad things because it creates biases that will prevent a person from liking things they otherwise would. Sometimes it’s just the mindset going into a film, or where a person is in life - I never liked Star Wars (the 1977 film) or Blade Runner until after I’d seen Blade Runner 2049 and Star Wars Rogue One, now I like both films considerably. In fact, Blade Runner is one of my favourite films these days. There was another film, Hitchcock’s Vertigo that I didn’t like as a young teenager, but it’s been my favourite film of all time for the last 15 years or so. I think a person needs a degree of life experience, or an imagination of that life experience, to enjoy some of the greatest films ever made. Brett Easton Ellis wrote of Vertigo “ Vertigo: bored at 17, mildly interested at 28, beyond devastated at 37. From then on I've considered it the most beautiful film ever made...”

A good example of a film critics flipped on is The Shining. At the time it was often considered the worst film of the year, awarding Razzies to it. Today, it’s near universally considered one of the best films in history.

[Eric]

I saw it, I liked it enough for what it was. I'd give it a 7 out of 10. I don't have a burning desire to watch it again. I do think it was missing something that would raise my score. This movie felt like a theme park ride of Mario things. It was generic with a paper thin plot, which is fine, because that's pretty much Mario games in a nutshell, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want more. I just watched Puss in Boots 2 recently, I had 0 desire to watch this movie and I was blown away as how good it was. I hope if they make a sequel to Mario they aim a little higher then 1) Pretty, 2) Simple jokes only for children, 3) Simple plot with no stakes or character agency. That being said it's Illumination and they make Minion movies, and really outside of maybe the first Despicable Me they're the safest animation studio in existence atm they don't really aim high.

[Julius Seeker]

I have no strong desire to see it myself, although, I’ll probably watch it eventually… when it becomes convenient to do so. I’d have probably watched it if I hadn’t had to literally travel 45 minutes to get to a working movie theatre… my local one got destroyed in a hurricane and won’t be reopening until the summer.

It’s not that I think it’ll be a bad film, only that I don’t think it’s particularly one for me. It’s kind of like how Pokémon, Pikmin, and Smash Bros are not for me, but as a Nintendo fan I’m glad the Mario film is successful. Nearly $1.1 billion US. I think this is proof there is real potential to make Nintendo film franchises into big film business. Zelda will no doubt have something, it’s surpassed Mario in popularity as far as games go.

[Eric]

Well for video game movies/adaptations it took a long time for us to get here. The people who grew up with video games some 25 years ago are the creative people making a lot of this stuff we're enjoying now. It can only get better from here(I hope) lol.

[Julius Seeker]

As much shit as the Street Fighter film got, I still liked the Bison line:

“For you, the day I destroyed your village was the most important day of your life. For me it was Tuesday.”

[Eric]

Oh the street fighter movie was a mess but it's certainly memorable!



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