I think I came away agreeing with all the points here but landing lower on my own scale. This is ranging like a 2 or 3 star movie for me.
This is way more one of those movies you put on to distract your kids for 90 minutes, and you maybe get more out of it the more you're a Mario fan. But it's just so thin as an actual movie. Every exchange is just kinda matter-of-factual. No character really has anything else going on.
And like, the high bar of animated family movies can be really high. The Lego Movie ends up being a really meta, genius movie that understands its subject matter in so many ways. Spider-Verse aims a bit older but really plays on peoples' relationship to Spider-Man. Even Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is for young audiences, but the gags are just so relentless and clever and funny that anyone can enjoy it. This just relies soooo much on the Mario iconography that there's nothing else there.
Like it doesn't have to be a Turning Red or Coco or something really emotionally affecting or personal, but its characters don't have any other layer to them. Or odd things like Mario kinda getting over being in the Mushroom Kingdom real fast. I just kinda liked the movie more when it was in Brooklyn versus when they actually get transported.
And all the Mario stuff is absolutely lovingly crafted - everything looks so good, moves so good, everything is really nicely visually realized, the posing and animation is great. There's nothing outright bad or wrong about this - it really is a pretty direct adaptation. But again, it's just really thin as a point-to-point adventure.
I don't know why Jan sacrificed Citizen Sleeper like that. Even if it doesn't make a top 10 or a top 5, dude talks about how it opened his eyes to an entire genre and had an emotional effect on him that he had to walk away for a bit.
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