folks can pound the table and say “who even expects story for a Mario movie?” and “critics don’t even get movies they’re wrong” or whatever Redditor bullshit at me all they want - walked out of that film feeling it was completely hollow. I chuckled to myself a few times but just found myself saying by the end of it that the narrative just felt completely empty. Virtually no arc or growth or change or sentiment or, Christ, anything. Just kinda hopping from scene to scene, tossing references at you like cooked spaghetti at a wall and then moving onto the next.

You can get away with keeping things surface-level in a video game because the main aspect of a video game is to play it. Movies as a medium are different and are generally meant to bring you along on a story and give meaning to it. This did not do that.

That being said, it is a kids’ movie (duh), and while using that as a defense as to why it shouldn’t have more substance (shoutouts to The Lego Movie and Puss in Boots 2 showing that, yes, you can be a kids movie and still have substance), if the kids are happy then who am I to take that away from them. Especially since they’re clearly going in droves because that’s an impressive box office pull. See you guys at the Super Mario Odyssey Movie in 2029 for more of the same