What a time for movies celebrating the Nintendo story. Tetris landed with a whimper on Apple TV+ while The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to smash question mark boxes and box office records.
Tetris is a drab legal drama about securing Gameboy licensing rights while The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a colourful Mario skin on top of a Minions movie. Both celebrations of the power of nostalgia and capitalism.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Nintendo finally did it (again). After making a LEGO set and more recently, a theme park, they’ve taken their beloved mascot and money maker to the silver screen. Further allowing for merchandise like massive bath bombs that turn your bath yellow and peel the palms of your 4-year-old with sensitive skin. Kids, don’t be handling bath bombs!
Teaming up with Illumination, makers of the inescapable Minions franchise, Nintendo found a way to print even more coin. Now it’s the top-grossing movie of 2023 and the best-selling video game movie of all time (previously held by Warcraft).
The voice of Mario made up much of the online discourse around this film. Gone was the voice of Charles Martinet, with the well-known but problematic Italian accent. In was Chris Pratt, the everyman. From master building in The Lego Movie to training dinos in Jurassic World, to guarding the galaxy, he does it all.
The world waited with bated breath for what Pratt’s unique take on the character would be. And after seeing the movie, it was largely… okay. Basically, it’s Pratt with a Brooklyn twang. The movie does a nice nod to the changing of the guard with a plumbing commercial playing up the ridiculous Italian accents to then revealing our heroes, Mario and Luigi (played by Charlie Day), with more down-to-earth Brooklyn-inspired tones.
As a tribute to Martinet, not only does he play a cameo in typical Mario “Wahoo!” fashion, but fittingly plays Mario’s dad (a similar thing occurred in The Last of Us adaptation). The biggest surprise for me was seeing Mario’s never-before-seen family sharing dinner together around a kitchen table, but they’re quickly discarded when the duo ends up in Mushroom Kingdom. It might’ve been nice to involve the family some more to add a bit of heart to the whole affair.
The references to the games are aplenty. Heck, even the karts from Mario Kart play a major role. But really, the emotion that stirred in my brittle gamer gut, was in hearing new interpretations of familiar musical tracks. From Peach’s Castle to Jack Black hamming it up on the piano with the underground theme. Unfortunately for us, the movie sidelined a lot of the soundtrack for more familiar pop hits, giving into the Illumination of it all. I feel like they’re doing it for the adults but we don’t want it. Kids don’t care about “Take On Me” by A-Ha. Who is this for?
When they do break through that template we are given Jack Black’s Peaches, an acoustic 80’s rock anthem in true Jack Black style. It brings life to what else feels like a paint-by-numbers (or a LEGO Super Mario instruction booklet).
Princess Peach falls into the same Trinity syndrome as The Matrix and Chris-Pratt-led The Lego Movie, where the more than capable female hero needs to become the cheerleader for the male character. In this case: Mario. As much as they try to give Princess Peach agency, more than the games at least, it’s still a tired trope.
I’ll admit, my expectations were high for this one. I don’t know why, having seen ALL of Illumination’s Minions movies. But I did have hope that teaming up with Nintendo would result in something unique. They did the thing, but it feels more like it’s feeding the money-making machine than providing that Nintendo magic.
Perhaps nothing can live up to decades of nostalgia. Needless to say, my 4-year-old has already asked when he can watch it at home on the TV, alongside its Minions counterparts, and for that, it’s a success. In the almighty words of Mario: It’s-a me, Super Defeated Dad-io.
Tetris (2023)
After taking on global superstar Elton John, Taron Egerton plays a lesser-known human: Henk Rogers. Rogers brought Tetris to the masses and is yet another mustachioed hero to bring Nintendo boatloads of cash.
Tetris was made by Alexey Pajitnov (played here by Nikita Efremov) while working for ELORG, a government-owned organisation in the Soviet Union that imported and exported computer hardware and software.
Sadly, the movie’s not even about the creation of Tetris. Tetris is already made when the movie starts and our hero plays it on a PC at CES (Consumer Electronics Show). The rest of the film is about him trying to secure home console and handheld rights when Nintendo reveals to him a secret prototype in grand fashion: the Gameboy.
It’s all just faxes, grey suits, and boardrooms. It doesn’t help it’s largely set in 1980’s Soviet Russia with a colour palette of grey concrete blocks (actually, I suppose it’s fitting). They do attempt to break away from this with abrupt videogame interstitials and pixel art that don’t fit the serious tone of the movie. Then they throw in a car chase for good measure. If you’re going to make all this stuff up to make the story more interesting, at least make Taron sing.
Ben Affleck’s just-released Air seems like it’s in a similar vein, with Nike trying to make a deal happen with Michael Jordan. Another story where we already know the outcome. Deals are made. Capitalism happens. A couple of people get filthy rich.
Though perhaps the creation process doesn’t make for an interesting movie either. Movies that lead to cliche biopic scenes where a musician appears to come up with a song in mere seconds *cough* Bohemian Rhapsody *cough*. Was the true answer to making a movie about Tetris, just slapping eyeballs on a few of the Tetriminoes and also putting them in a Minions movie?
Tetris is not worth watching, even if you’re a fan of the game or you’re just wanting to see Taron Egerton in a mustache (sorry, it’s fake).
We don’t have to wait for long for the next big video game adaptation. Move over Sony and Nintendo. Jason Momoa is starring in the Microsoft-owned Minecraft, hitting theatres in 2025.