In brief: There has been a lot of excitement about the Super Mario Bros. animated movie, despite the controversy over Chris Pratt's voicing of the famous plumber. Now that it's arrived in theaters, was it worth the hype? That probably depends on whom you ask.
Looking at Rotten Tomatoes, the Super Mario Bros. Movie is another one of those titles that many critics dislike, but viewers seem to love. It currently has an underwhelming score of just 54% from over 100 reviews aggregated by the site, yet the audience score is a massive 98%.
Some less-positive reviews have called the movie unimaginative, unfunny, and inaccessible for non-fans of the games. And the choice of Chris Pratt to voice Mario is called a mistake by more than one critic.
Most of the general public disagrees with the reviews, especially those who enjoy the games and love the amount of easter eggs packed into the movie. It's a change from Angry Birds, another game-based animation, which everyone hated, but it's something we saw with Sonic and Sonic 2, both of which were hailed as two of the genre's best movies ever, yet many critics disliked them.
While even the most savage critic would probably agree that the animated version is a better interpretation of Mario than the first-ever video game-based movie, Super Mario Bros., the BBC's Nicholas Barber disagrees. "Any adults accompanying those children may wish they were watching the Hoskins and Leguizamo film instead." Both stars admitted to often being drunk while filming the infamous movie.
Despite the hostile reception from many critics, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is bringing in money at the box office. It looks set to make $225 million globally, including $125 million in North America, during its first five days of release, writes Deadline.
If Super Marie Bros. stays on track, it will have the best opening weekend to date this year, beating Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's $225.3 million. It still has a way to go before reaching the highest-grossing movie based on a video game: Warcraft, another one that critics hated, made $439 million globally.