Metacritic reviews

The Super Mario Bros. Movie captures the spirit of the games, the deep history, and the incredible possibilities that these games have presented for decades, all in one of the most fun animated films in years, with a team behind it that you can feel loves these characters and this world.

For any parents reading this — it might not be the best film of the year, but you're going to be able to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie more than once without losing your dang mind.

Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, creators of the Teen Titans Go! series, deliver a reasonably faithful big screen adaptation that, while it features plenty of juvenile humor, wisely doesn’t lean toward broad satire.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is chock-full of Nintendo Easter eggs—to the detriment of the story and its characters, which lack any real substance.

While it could use a few banana peels to slow its relentless pace, this adaptation is a faithful introduction to the Mushroom Kingdom.

The second film adaptation of the phenomenally successful video game is a disappointment to rival the first.

The film feels like it’s content to check off to-do notes and scratch the viewer’s nostalgia itch.

The few laughs kind of die of loneliness, in what is allegedly a children’s animated comedy. And without laughs, all this ill-conceived animated replacement for one of the most infamous live-action flops of the ’90s has to offer is nostalgia for a simple game of a simpler time. The eight-and-unders this is aimed at are way too young to get that.

As is often the case with a not-so-great film, I can report that I wanted to like it more than I did. But I just couldn’t.

Occasionally amusing but rarely engaging, it leaves one feeling like they’re standing to the side and watching someone else play a video game.