Plus side: Much less jarring than I feared it would be. Actually looks and feels, for the most part, like a straight up film adaptation of the games, but with enough movie-specific embellishment to make it unique and fun. Which is great IMO. I feel like I can definitely watch and probably enjoy this movie. So long as it doesn't incorporate any Chip'n'Dale style meta real world adult humor, I'm good with this approach personally.

Down side: This is probably something I'll just get used to, but the way in which they've animated the faces to be similar to the voice actors (Bowser's cheeks and smile style are totally Jack Black, Mario is a cartoonified version of Chris Pratt's facial expressions if you look closely, etc.) is a little bit much for me. And while I liked 99% of the voice acting we heard, it's going to be very very hard for me to adjust to Mario sounding like just straight up Chris Pratt doing the thinnest possible Brooklyn style Italian accent in some scenes, and just plain Chris Pratt in others apparently. ("What is this place?" was literally just Chris Pratt to me.)

Overall: Much better than I feared, and I'll happily watch it when I can next year. And I hope we get some sort of game to capitalize on it, too.

General musing: I think the challenge any supremely popular video game IP faces with film adaptations is that many of them, like Mario, are old enough and psychologically entrenched enough within us from an early age, that any even minor deviation from what we're accustomed to in them can feel far more amplified and distinctive than they would in any other context (such as a book adaptation.) Because video games are so audiovisually distinct, and we replay them so many times, they are drilled into our brains and we're all sort of visual and aural experts in what we think they "should" look and sound like. I think we kind of have to very consciously resist that impulse in order to get into these movies, and I don't think the majority of audiences will do that. But the alternative is to make it too similar, which also isn't going to be satisfying to moviegoers IMO. It's a conundrum other media don't face. And I think this movie looks like it's walking that tightrope pretty well.

 

Okay, so.

Bowser? Phenomenal. He's on point. Jack Black is definitely showing his range with this performance.
Toad sounds okay. Didn't get nearly enough of Mario to form an opinion, but he doesn't...I just don't think Chris has the range for Mario.
So we've heard two of the voices we've been unsure of, one sounds great the other the jury's still out on. We really needed to hear something from Charlie Day's Luigi, I think.

 

Wait, it’s actually good?

 

so does Chris Pratt have no range or does he just not try at all?

 

He has rang, but his voice is distinctive. They most likely want his voice to sound like-his voice. Otherwise you might not get as many butts in seats.

Plus, I mean, Mario’s “accent” isn’t really an accent. It’s more of an exaggerated stereotype of an accent.


Although for those saying he has a Brooklyn accent. Wasn’t the Mario from the original Mario movie from Brooklyn?

 

This is going to be Bowser's movie.

 

This actually looks good.

Also crazy that the studio behind Minions and Despicable Me made this, cause the animation is so much better and beautiful.

 

Yeah, back in the day that was actually a recurring thing in early non-game media for Mario. The Mario cartoons from back then also portrayed the Bros. as coming from Brooklyn to the Mushroom Kingdom. I heard the vaguest hint of a Brooklyn accent in what little we heard of Chris's Mario. In any case, I'll be honest - I'm inclined to agree with other people who've been saying that, if anyone other than Charles Martinet should have voice Mario for this movie, it should have been Danny DeVito. Danny DeVito Mario going up against Jack Black's Bowser would have been glorious.

 

It's strange that people say this when he did a very good job with his role in the two Lego movies. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he barely had any lines in this teaser.

 

So, just a quick speculation about the movie's plot: This teaser shows us Bowser invading another kingdom and stealing a Power Star/Starman. It's the MacGuffin of the film. Exactly what the Power Stars do in the games isn't entirely clear, but the Starman as a power up specifically makes anyone who grabs it temporarily invincible. With this in mind, is Bowser planning to use the Star's power to make himself and his army invincible? It would explain his confidence that no one is going to be able to stop him.

 

Looks pretty great!

Pratt’s voice doesn’t phase me in the least. He’ll do fine. Mario has had everything from a high pitched, helium sucking voice to a chain smoking Brooklyn accent. Not even worried about Pratt.

Jack Black is great, of course. The visuals are absolutely beautiful. I am really loving this rendition of the Mushroom Kingdom. Can’t wait to see more.

 

The Direct and the trailer were all sorts of horseshit. Chris Pratt’s little vid saying how “excited” he is to play Mario is bullshit. He looks and sounds uninterested, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he never played a Mario game and was making it up. His Mario voice is, as expected, terrible, and everyone else sounds off. The designs and visuals try way too hard to be realistic when Super Mario is supposed to be more cartoony if anything else. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Miyamoto has gone senile in his old age, and this movie’s going to SUCK. Anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.

 

Honestly I found the trailer to be pretty charming, the animation is a lot better than I was expecting from Illumination.

I dig it, and I hope it turns out to be a decent flick. D:

 

Also none of the voices sounded out of place, which was one of my concerns when we first got the voice cast. They all seem to fit quite well.

Now granted we've only heard a bit of them but there wasn't really a voice that took me out of it.  

 

Honestly surprised at how solid it looks. My only reservation is that Illumination is making it...and that's a pretty big reservation considering they have like one legitimately great movie in their lineup.

But I'm impressed by the restraint here. I kept expecting the serious tone to be undercut by Bowser farting or something, but they went with a funnier gag. And the characters look almost straight from the games, they didn't give them the Despicable Me look like they kind of did with the Grinch. And the animation looks really good for Illumination. Like, this almost looks like Disney-level animation. To the point where I had to double check who made it (I thought maybe it was another studio and I just misremembered).

I really hope this is a solid start, because I could easily see this being an ongoing franchise. Like, I could easily picture a sequel focused on Mario Kart or Smash Bros, and a spinoff about Donkey Kong or something. To me this already looks like it has the potential for a whole series, whereas the Sonic movies arguably took two movies (and a full redesign of the title character) to fully justify their existence.