The box office figures for The Super Mario Bros Movie were released on Sunday, and “Mamma mia!” the numbers are huge. In fact, “Mario number one!”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie has broken the record for the highest opening of any animated film (toppling Disney’s Frozen II), earning a staggering $377 million in ticket sales worldwide. The movie made $204.6 million in the domestic market over five days, with $146.4 million coming in over the three-day weekend. Additionally, it brought in $173 million in 70 international markets. I’m not surprised. My family went to see it on opening night, and it’s a fun movie loved by everyone who watched it. The only people who didn’t seem to like it were the critics, who predictably bemoaned the lack of a deeper message in the film.
One controversy related to the film was the lack of an Italian accent from Chris Pratt, who voices Mario, but that is explained right away, and before long, you realize that all the voices have been perfectly cast. Trust me, audiences didn’t care, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you won’t either.
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“I wasn’t expecting Pixar,” wrote one critic, “but the heroes end where they started, not having been transformed by their experiences or learning anything from them.”
“Mario’s animated movie debut is too safe and passive, more content with referencing its source material than playing with it,” another critic laments.
It’s true. There was no lecturing about global warming. There were no gender swaps, race swaps, or token LGBTQ characters. If you were worried that Princess Peach would be changed to a transgender, or Mario and Luigi would be written as a same-sex couple and not brothers, have no fear—the movie knows who it’s trying to please, even if critics don’t get it. In fact, one critic blasted the movie for the crime of catering to the fans of the game franchise. “It’s fan service above all else, regressively so.” The horror!
The film did spark some controversy, however. John Leguizamo, who played Luigi in the original live-action Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993, told TMZ he plans to boycott the movie due to the lack of diversity in its casting.
“No I will not [be watching],” Leguizamo said. “They could’ve included a Latin character. Like, I was groundbreaking and then they stopped the groundbreaking.”
“They messed up the inclusion,” he added. “They dis-included. Just cast some Latin folk! We’re 20 percent of the population. The largest people of color group and we are underrepresented.”
Yeah, it’s hard to imagine why they didn’t cast Latinos to voice Italian plumbers. Boycott! Boycott!
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Still, the most surprising part of this story is that Leguizamo sought to remind the public of his involvement in the original Mario movie, which scored a 29% rating from both critics and audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes. I was part of that movie’s target audience when it came out in 1993, and even I knew then it was terrible from the previews, and I never even bothered to see it.
“The original film, a dud by most measures, featured a British actor as Mario – Bob Hoskins – and the main characters are Italian, not Hispanic,” conservative film critic Christian Toto told Fox News Digital. “Now, he’s talking about an animated film where anyone from any background can play any of the characters. Yes, Hollywood has done a lousy job of being open to people from all backgrounds in the past, but the industry has taken great strides to address that issue.”
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a collaboration between Nintendo and Illumination. It seems that Disney has been spending too much time trying to erase white characters from its classics or pushing its LGBTQ agenda on children to realize that the key to success is catering to the fans, not the woke mob.
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