On March 10, the follow up to last year’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie (directed by Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic, co-directed by Pierre Leduc & Fabien Polack, screenplay by Matthew Fogel) was announced for a 2026 release date. I am looking forward to the sequel, though I have lukewarm feelings about the first installment. The news of the next movie and my thoughts on the 2023 film have caused me to reflect on video games as an art form and on the adaptation of video games into film and television.
I love video games. I was obsessed with playing on the Game Boy Advance during my childhood. Thanks to that console, I played remakes and re-releases of classic games from SEGA and Nintendo, including Sonic Advance, Metroid: Zero Mission, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, and Donkey Kong Country. These games captured my attention through their colorful and imaginative environments, excellent character designs, catchy music, and amazing gameplay. This final element, I believe, is the most essential element of a video game. The graphics can be amazing, and the soundtrack can be killer, but if the controls are clunky, then people aren’t going to play it. Beyond controls that feel good, the levels/challenges that games task their players with should be interesting and engaging. If they’re boring and repetitive, then players will abandon the games before finishing them.
This interactivity, which requires participation from the player in order for the game to advance, makes video games different from most movies, television shows, and stage productions. Engagement with the latter art forms usually do not require inputs from the audience. Since this interactivity inherent in video games can so powerfully draw the focus of the audience through a progressive feeling of challenge and reward, as well as through exciting gameplay and snappy controls, narrative can take a backseat as an element in video games. In other words, when I first played Sonic Advance, I didn’t know why Doctor Eggman was the antagonist. I didn’t know his motivation, nor did I care. All I cared about was exploring the levels, overcoming obstacles, controlling my character through platforming and combat with their snappy move set, and kicking Eggman’s butt at the end of the level so that I could see what the next level had in store.
I don’t mean to suggest, though, that narrative isn’t an essential part of video games. Plenty of amazing games such as Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII are remembered for their incredible stories. What I mean to suggest is that, despite the fact that I adore storytelling, I have noticed that engaging with video games is one of the few times I can experience art while ignoring the story.
When I think about my gaming habits, I’ve noticed that I play some games for the narrative, some for the gameplay, and some for both.
Ghost of Tsushima is a game I enjoyed, but I don’t think the gameplay was groundbreaking or incredibly original. The gameplay reminded me of several games I had played before. What compelled me to keep going was the endearing main character in Ghost of Tsushima, Jin Sakai. I wanted to see if he could finish his mission. I wanted to witness his journey’s end.
I also love the Monster Hunter series. Currently, I’m playing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne with my brother. The game has a story explaining why the player character is exploring different areas and hunting different monsters. But I could not give less of a damn. When I play Monster Hunter, I don’t care about why I’m doing what I’m doing from a narrative perspective. All I care about is fighting expertly-designed monsters so that I could use materials from my victories to upgrade my armor and weapons; this makes me stronger and able to fight fiercer monsters, which reward me with even better upgrade materials. It’s an addictive loop, a satisfying treadmill of challenge and reward.
And finally, some games blend narrative and gameplay expertly, with each element enhancing the other. I adore the 2018 God of War video game for both its amazing story and its visceral combat. The game makes me feel like I’m in the shoes of the protagonist Kratos, guiding my son Atreus on a journey to a mountain to spread Atreus’s mother’s ashes. There’s a moment during which Kratos retrieves a weapon which fundamentally alters the gameplay, but that also has heavy narrative weight. The scene in which he arms himself with the recovered weapon rivals some of my favorite moments from my most adored films and television shows. Major props to the skilled actor who did the motion capture and voice of Kratos, the talented Christopher Judge.
What does all this have to do with The Super Mario Bros. Movie? Here goes: I play Mario games for the gameplay, and, in my opinion, the movie would have been better if it had spent more time recreating the frenetic excitement of the games instead of trying to expand the backstory.
When I play a Mario game, I’m most invested in the creative environments, beautiful settings, and exciting levels. I love making Mario jump, wall climb, and slide through the expertly crafted challenges. I cannot wait to see what over-the-top combat or exploration scenario I will participate in next as I progress.
The best parts of the movie captured this experience of playing the game. I give major props to the artists at Illumination who brought the characters and environments to vivid life through amazing designs. All the characters looked amazing. The environments were beautiful and immersive thanks to their amazing details. Mushroom Kingdom and Jungle Kingdom were places I imagined getting lost in. They were places I wished were real, like Pandora in Avatar.
Also, I give props to the voice actors for infusing so much energy into their larger-than-life characters. Charlie Day captured Luigi’s nervous energy so well. Anya Taylor-Joy was an excellent Princess Peach: resourceful, confident, and considerate. Keegan-Michael Key’s Toad took initiative. Seth Rogan’s Donkey Kong was filled with bravado. Jack Black was the Bowser of my dreams: perfectly silly and cartoonishly menacing.
A lot of fans expressed disappointment online over the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario. I think the film tried to make Mario an everyman character, and for that purpose, Pratt did a good job.
Beyond the designs of the characters and the environments, the action sequences in the movie captured the excitement of playing the games. The dash on Rainbow Road was incredible; the choreography of the characters as they drove around each other and fought on karts echoed the thrills of a Mario Kart game. The scene near the end in which Mario and Donkey Kong climb and fight their way through obstacles and enemies to save Bowser’s captives reminded me of my favorite Mario levels. The swift camera matched the acrobatics of the characters as they dodged obstacles and caught power ups.
If most scenes were as skillfully choreographed as the scenes I mentioned above, I would watch this movie again and again.
For me, the problem was that the movie wasted too much time on uninteresting backstory. The opening scenes were devoted to Mario and Luigi’s lives in Brooklyn, their dreams to run a successful plumbing company, and their relationships with their family members. And I could not give less of a damn. I wanted to see Mushroom Kingdom, with its vibrant environments and cool inhabitants. I didn’t want to see Mario and Luigi fixing a leaking sink while their clients’ angry dog interfered. Such uninspired plot beats are not what I enter the world of Mario to experience.
Applying my personal scale of narrative and gameplay to movies, I think gameplay can translate to action sequences on the screen. Some of my favorite action movies, like John Wick and Pacific Rim, have rather basic plots. Yet, their sets and art styles are alluring, and their action scenes are so well executed. Both films remind me of video games, with the protagonists needing to conquer successively more difficult enemies in order to obtain their goals. The thrills I feel watching those movies are not unlike the excitement I feel playing an exciting level of Splinter Cell or Halo. Though film lacks the interactivity of video games, cinema can be just as immersive. When the filmmakers’ toolkit is fully realized, then cinematography, sets, costumes, special effects, choreography, and acting can come together to create a scene that gets the heart racing.
If The Super Mario Bros. movie had taken the same approach as action movies by focusing on exciting set pieces and frenetic choreography instead of cliche backstory, I would have loved it much more. I hope the second film focuses more on the experience of action and adventure that the games provide their players. I hope the sequel takes the action-packed second half of the first installment as its blueprint.
The second approach to make the sequel better would be to develop an interesting and compelling story, but this is perhaps less likely. Mario is such a major intellectual property, and I believe that the makers of the next film probably have limits on how to use the character and his world. This is the case with many movies based on popular franchises: creative freedom is often hindered. As a not-too-distant example, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi tried to be subversive and surprising, but a certain vocal section of the fandom got so angry and aggressive that Disney made the next installment a cookie-cutter good-versus-evil story.
However, there are times when artists are given creative license to do what they want with popular intellectual property. I adored James Gunn’s take on The Suicide Squad. It had a refreshing anarchic energy to it, especially for a film based on comic book characters. There were moments in that film that genuinely surprised me on my first viewing.
I’ll wait for the next Super Mario Bros. movie with cautious optimism. Some series of events are likelier than others, but ultimately, anything can happen. The future is infinite.
I do hope that the adaptations of video games into different media cause fans who are used to enjoying mainly video games or mainly movies to get interested in different art forms. If more people played Mario games because of the movies, then as a fan, I would smile.
Great article