Well, it’s finally here! After months of speculation, the first trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Bros movie has now been posted online. Here’s the video if you (somehow) haven’t seen it yourself:
Surprisingly, it’s actually surpassed our expectations! Indeed, from what we see, it actually looks far more interesting than we’d ever expect.
Especially given the start of the trailer doesn’t involve the usual Illumination style jokes, Mario backstory or other ‘expected’ content. Instead, we get an epic shot of Bowser’s forces laying waste to an icy penguin city in a way that’s awfully remniscient of the Super Mario Galaxy intro. It’s certainly a dramatic start to the trailer, and one which assanges a lot of our fears right off the bat.
Is this the Mario movie, or Paper Mario?
Bowser’s Castle dwarfs the penguin’s hometown
And it already shows more personality than many recent Mario games in the process too. The Koopas and penguins have unique clothing and designs, there are new locations not seen in the games, and the feel of things is a million miles away from the generic plasticy look of the New Super Mario Bros series too. It’s a solid start, and immediately shows that Nintendo’s dreaded mandates aren’t anywhere near as strict this time around.
The Koopas have unique designs here
The penguin army looks cool too
Kamek is awesome in this trailer too
It also does a good job of making Bowser menacing and funny at the same time too. He can be dramatic where he needs to be (“Open this gate!” [him burning the door down and blowing up half the city]), yet he still has a funny personality at times too (like where he basically just says “no” to the penguin king asking him to yield).
He actually looks really good here
Bowser’s expressions are great here too
Snowballs are not an effective weapon vs the Koopa King
Kamek quickly deals with the penguin army
Before Bowser blasts down the door and destroying the city
Hmm, is Super Mario 64 being referenced here? Neat.
So we’re off to a good start there. The visuals look good, Bowser and the Koopas are menacing, there are interesting characters to deal with, and so far, the voice acting is up to par.
That brings us to the second major scene, and the one which could have easily sunk the film if done correctly. Yep, it’s the one where Mario actually makes a full appearance, and the one where the leaked McDonalds ad design was giving us a bit of anxiety.
Fortunately, it seems that was rather premature. Indeed, while the design looked quite mediocre on paper as a still frame, it looks a lot better in motion, with Mario’s facial structures feeling way more natural than we’d ever expect them to be.
Mario looks great in this movie, surprising
Toad makes a memorable appearance in the trailer
Mario chills in the Mushroom Kingdom after going through the pipe
Chris Pratt’s voice on the other hand, will need some getting used to. It’s not bad by any means, and it’s nowhere near as awkward as we feared it’d be.
But it didn’t stand out either, at least not in the same way as Bowser and Kamek’s voices from earlier. It was just fine, and mostly faded into the background.
Still, the same can’t be said about the scenery or Toad, both of which looked and sounded incredible in this video. The former is detailed and lifelike, with tons of amazing throwbacks for Mario fans, and the latter… sounds surprisingly bearable, with a voice that feels Toad like without getting annoying.
So while Mario’s voice is still a bit weird, his design works perfectly, as do the designs and voices of everyone else around him.
And that brings us to the creepiest, and most unexpected part of the video. Luigi’s appearance.
Oh god, Luigi’s appearance was amazing here. He’s shown running through a spooky wasteland pursued by an army of red eyed Dry Bones, and barely making it into the castle before he gets destroyed. It’s an awesome scene, and gives me serious Luigi’s Mansion flashbacks too.
The Dry Bones in this movie look terrifying
This is right out of Luigi’s Mansion, isn’t it?
He also sounds good here too. Okay, we don’t hear much of him, but his voice already seems to work better than Pratt’s one, and captures Luigi’s personality nigh perfectly.
Either way, that’s the trailer. It’s surprisingly good for an Illumination movie, and avoids many of the pitfalls we were originally imagining the movie would had here.
So yeah, we’re excited for it now. It shows promise, and seems like something more original than just ‘Generic NSMB style media #996’.
Still, what did you think? Did you enjoy the first glimpse at the Mario movie today? What characters and moments were your favourites in this early teaser?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or over on our Discord server today!
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