It's-a-me, Movie Mario! (Thoughts on the first trailer for the Super Mario Bros. Movie)

     Hey friends, I have to be honest about something today. I have always loved the idea of video game movies, even though if you think about them long enough, they are pretty tough to make into that medium. This is where we get the concept that video game movies are always going to be bad no matter what. We are thankfully moving away from those concepts with successful and fun movies like Sonic the Hedgehog (1 and 2) and Detective Pikachu. As I'm sure you've heard, the first trailer for the Super Mario Bros. movie came out last Thursday, and the internet kind of exploded in a mostly positive direction, so this week I'm going to talk a bit about the direction that the movie is going in, as well as my initial thoughts. Let's jump down that warp pipe and get right into it, shall we?

    The trailer begins with an extremely menacing Bowser's flying castle (complete with a lava lake) attacking an ice kingdom where penguins come out to protect themselves and are completely blown away by Bowser who then steals a Star. Obviously we don't really know what the purpose of this star is, but whether it's a Power Star like in Super Mario 64, or if it's a Star power-up that makes you invincible like in the 2D Mario games, but either way, it's obvious that it's a bad thing that Bowser has his hands on it. The next shot is Mario, seemingly arriving in the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time as he's really confused as to where he is. We get a short comedic scene of Toad screaming, then Mario and Toad hop off towards the kingdom itself. That's the end of the trailer other than a stinger of Luigi running away from a bunch of Dry Bones in a shot that would go well in any Luigi's Mansion game. I know this teaser isn't a lot to go on, but it is a lot for fans to begin getting excited for.

    Just speaking on the voice acting, it's hard to say so far, as we only heard three or four voices, but Bowser is the clear standout here. Jack Black is bringing some pretty outstanding charisma and energy to the role of the Koopa King that I think is going to be fantastic. I had very few doubts going in that Jack Black would be able to rise to the occasion, but I was glad to see that come true, at least so far. I also love that Kamek is getting a speaking role here, as I was worried that all of Bowser's minions could be silent and used as just units in the "Koopa army," and veteran voice actor Kevin Richardson seems to be a great pick for that voice. Mario himself, voiced by Chris Pratt, has gotten a lot more criticism, as from the trailer that we got, Mario's voice kind of just sounds like Chris Pratt's normal voice. While I think we need to hear more of Mario before judging the performance, I have to wonder why exactly the teams involved went with Chris Pratt on this project. I can't help wondering what Charles Martinet (the normal voice actor for Mario) thinks about the voice, or if maybe he could have helped Pratt by giving some pointers or tricks in how he normally pulls off the voice. I've heard many people say that it wouldn't make sense for Martinet to voice the character in the movie, but he's a professional voice actor, and I have no doubt that he could tweak his performance to be less over-exaggerated. Like I said, I think Pratt could be good, but we need to hear more of his version of Mario, as Bowser took up most of the screen time in this trailer. I have to give a shout out to Keegan-Michael Key as the voice of Toad. I wasn't sure going in what he would sound like, but I think he gives a great voice to the mushroom citizen, though it remains to be seen if he's voicing all of the toads or just the main one that we see here, but either way, I think this character is in good hands with Key. I shouldn't have been worried about it, but I just couldn't see, even though he does have a good history with screaming characters it seems. Those are the main voices we hear, other than the slight scream from Charlie Day as Luigi, but we'll definitely have to wait for more of his lines. 

    The next characters that I hope we'll hear from are Peach, DK, and Cranky Kong, just because I'm so curious as to what they'll sound like. I have to imagine that Donkey Kong will just sound like Seth Rogen, since he never seems to put much effort into voice work, but maybe we'll all be surprised. Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong I really can't get into my head because I love Fred and I'm sure he's going to do great, but I also just have such a hard time imagining what that voice is going to sound like. In a similar way, Anya Taylor-Joy is a great actress, I'm just really curious to hear what her version of Princess Peach will sound like. I truly haven't seen her in much of anything other than the Queen's Gambit, so I'm hardly an expert, but I think she could provide a slightly different take on the character from the one that we're used to. 

    I'm really excited to see a lot of Easter eggs from this movie, especially since Koji Kondo is working with the composer of the movie, so we can expect some video game tracks in this movie I think. Even in the trailer, we heard a little snippet of the World 1-1 theme from the original Super Mario Bros. game, and I'm always happy for some good video game music, especially from Mr. Kondo! One of the few complaints I had about Sonic 2 was that there weren't really any tracks from the games from what I can recall, but I'm glad that hopefully that won't be an issue with this post. On top of this, apparently Keegan-Michael Key improvised a song for Toad to sing in the movie... so maybe it's going to be a musical? We'll have to see what the deal is with this, but I'm definitely excited about that development.

    There's really not a lot to go over here from this trailer, but I will say that I'm really liking what I've seen so far about this film. I was always planning on seeing this movie, so it's not like the trailer really sold me on the concept of the idea, but I will say that I'm pleasantly surprised with how the movie is looking. I'm glad to see that Illumination seems to be pulling out all the stops for this movie, and I hope that we'll get to see more very soon!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I hope you're happy with the trailer that we got and maybe let me know if there's a character that you're hoping to see in this movie. My reach pick would be Rosalina, just because I love her as a character, but my more realistic pick would be Yoshi. That begs the question though, would Yoshi actually say words? Or just the normal noises that Yoshis normally make? Either way, I would love to see more characters show up than they've already mentioned, especially since the original announcement said that Charles Martinet will be in the film as well, though they didn't disclose who he will be playing. I know this post isn't very long and I hope you'll forgive that, I was just really excited to talk about it! As always, I'm your favorite Self-Proclaimed hopeful movie fan, and I'll talk to you all again next week.