Summary
The story is pretty much as basic as you would expect from most Mario games. The Mario Brothers, who are plumbers, get sucked into a new world for a warp pipe. Once in this new and strange world, Mario decides to help Peach protect the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser in order to save his brother.
The segments involving their original home are a bit dull
This movie tries to give the brothers a bit of a sad intro to make you feel bad for them, but honestly, it just feels pointless. Most of the jokes are a bit boring, and no one seems to matter outside of Mario and Luigi anyway. Aside from a really fun segment set to No Sleep Till Brooklyn, I don't think anything was added.
Great Music Choices
Speaking of, the music selection in this movie is fantastic. There are a good number of commercial songs they grabbed for this game. The above-mentioned 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn' matched up perfectly with the movie showing Mario and Luigi rushing to a job as you would see it in any of the Mario Side Scrollers, but a lot more fluid and action-packed considering the nature of this being a movie. Then Thunderstruck kicking in for the Mario Kart chase going on was another fantastic touch.
This is all mixed in with several renditions of songs from classic Mario and even Donkey Kong Country games. It is all well timed and very nostalgic.
Doesn't care to explain anything, and that's okay
If you want an explanation as to how anything in the world of The Mushroom Kingdom works, you are going to be sorely let down. Everything in this world is set up like a level from the games, without any real reason given as to why. Confusing Warp pipe intersections, falling black, mushrooms that shrink or grow you, you are just presented with all of this and not explained too why any of it is this way.
Even Mario himself, seeing all this for the first time, pretty quickly adapts and just accepts it and moves on. Very little time is spent on the actual story, and pretty much everything leads immediately into the action sequences. I would be shocked if the high-paced action takes up less than 80% of the screen time.
I mean even Toad just decides Mario is now his best friend and the movie just expects you to go along with it. But everything is going so fast and there is such a strangely consistent logic to how people in this world act, yeah. Best friends, I can buy it.
This movie is an unapologetic video game.
I can't think of any other video game movie that does it quite like Mario. The story is pretty much presented as you would see in video games, the camera shoots the movie from the viewpoint many of the games would be viewed from, and the way the world functions feels more like a video game than anything you would see in a movie, it's unreal how much this whole thing feels like a game.
It's like they went out of their way to find out just how close you can push this movie to feel and look like a video game within the confines of still making it just a movie, and I think they found that balance. It does not look like any other movie I can think of right now.
Then there is this thing.
Lumalee is strange. This character is completely unnecessary to anything going on and could be cut without losing anything that makes this movie great. It is simultaneously the best part of the entire movie. It's just a chipper nihilist that is there to say things to make people feel depressed. It is made all the funnier by the responses the King Penguin has in response, but I won't spoil those here. This thing is just so bizarre and out of place, and I love it.
Overall
This movie was made by people who loved Mario. There are so many callbacks and easter eggs mixed with them having no desire to present this as anything other than a crazy video game world. It is way better than I could have hoped for, and if you have ever been a fan of Mario the movie is a blast. I highly recommend it.