‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Trailer Released: Shows Great Visuals & Oddly Muted Chris Pratt Performance

Nintendo and Illumination have premiered the first full trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. In general, the production value was off the hook with some very stylish animation and great renditions of classic characters like Mario, Bowser and Toad.

Some fans, however are questioning the casting of celebrity Chris Pratt as the titular hero. The line of thinking may have been that moviegoers would have less patience for Mario’s usual voice in the video games, performed by Charles Martinet, which is a high-pitched and cartoony Italian accent.

From what little we hear of Pratt, he basically just has a vague hint of some sort of Brooklyn or Queens, New York accent, and mostly sounds exactly like the actor playing him. Some fans have unfavorably likened Pratt’s Mario to the character Linda Belcher from the Fox series Bob’s Burgers, which is brutal but pretty accurate, at least from what we’ve heard.

Now we should also note that Pratt has done a great job as the hero in a voice-only role, bringing many hilarious scenes to his role as Emmett in The Lego Movie, so if he has channeled it for other moments in the Mario movie, he could do okay.

Pratt’s Mario performance honestly hardly features in this trailer, with the main focus being the reveal of Bowser, voiced by Jack Black. Black brought exactly what was needed at least in this teaser, and seemed to be having a ton of fun with the classic gaming villain part.

As much as diehard Mario fans, this author included, may nitpick some aspects of Pratt’s performance, all in all this trailer looked absolutely great. If it keeps delivering cool action set-pieces and animation as impressive as the trailer, there’s no reason why this movie won’t be a phenomenal option to take your family to see when it releases on April 7, 2023.