#174. Super Mario Bros.
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With Sonny out sick with COVID (and laryngitis-stricken Mike stepping in solo alongside JVL), the two review The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and while both of their kids adore it — Mike's eight-year-old declares it the best movie of the year and the five-year-old gives it an "A++" — the hosts themselves tear it apart. Mike, who saw it twice, calls it "not a movie, it's an advertisement and propaganda," criticizing a Princess Peach who is written as an implausible Mary Sue with no real reason to need Mario's help, and lamenting how little screen time is given to Charlie Day's Luigi and Jack Black's half-hearted Bowser song. JVL goes further, saying he "fucking hated" it, savaging Chris Pratt's phoned-in Mario, the endless "Mamma Mia" gag, and a padded, plotless Donkey Kong detour that should have been cut entirely, while conceding the one Brooklyn plumbing-call scene (an Abbott-and-Costello-style bit) actually works; he theorizes the film's record-breaking box office has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with four months of pent-up parental demand for a theater that will "shut the fuck up" their kids for 90 minutes, and dismisses the constant video-game references as "member berries for eight-year-olds." The first third of the episode is given over to extended Little League banter: Mike's son's kid-pitch season opener, Mike's reluctant conscription into scorekeeping and pitch-counting duty, a debate over stealing on a passed ball, the "game coordinator" role that mediates parent-umpire blowups, dueling snack-stand nostalgia (ring pops and funnel cake versus slush puppies and Atomic Warheads), and the team parents' surreptitious end-of-game beer tradition, plus JVL's own blissful child-free afternoon spent working under a tree at his daughter's game. They close by teasing a bonus episode ranking their top five Nintendo games of all time.
From the show notes
Sonny is sick so JVL and Mike talk about the soul-sucking awfulness of the animated movie with the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time. They angry. Very, very angry.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon. I'm JBL here with my buddy, Mike Warren, but no Sonny. Mike, Sonny has coronavirus. He's got the COVID. Matt Robarts, our buddy, also has the COVID. Everybody's got the COVID. You have laryngitis. You don't sound great, but you have strapped it on to do this. This is actually our second take of the show. We did a pretty hot four minutes before my internet crapped out. We were previously talking about the opening to your son's Little League season.
Mike00:00:40Yes. Yes, JBL. And it was again, it's a I feel like I've been sort of leading us up this season to, you know, the very beginning of Kid Pitch. A lot of the kids on the team are new to it. In fact, I think there's just one. Kid who has played Kid Pitch before. So the coach has taken a good sort of steady, slow and steady process to getting the kids warmed up to it. Trying out a lot of kids on pitcher and other positions. But, you know, OK, so my son's team won. No big deal. It's just the first game of the season. But he won. That was great. That was undefeated. Exactly. Well, they're undefeated right now. You know, I mean, I mean, you know, if we stop, if we stop. They count right now. Then the dreams of the Little League World Series dreams of Williamsport. Oh, yeah, baby. But again, I think the most important element of the story of the first game of the season is about me. And it is about obviously. Yes, of course, is about the task that I had during this game, which was to keep the book JVL. The coach, you know, I did that thing where you walk up to the coach. As things are getting ready, I go, hey, what do you need anything from me? Need any help? Huge mistake. Oh, yeah. Rookie mistake. Rookie mistake right there on you. Because he goes, but, you know, look, I'm I'm an assistant coach for my for my T-ballers team in the spirit of the Little League. I'm here to help. That's kind of what I am approaching it. And he rewarded me for that with handing me the book. He asked me both to keep score and to count pitches as part of the process, because there is a rule that a kid. Who pitches at this level more than 50 pitches cannot pitch in the next game. Sort of how it goes. There was no danger of that happening at this level, but it's just something we have to do. Fifty pitches is an inning at this level, right? Yeah, but yes. And but actually we got it.
JVL00:02:53Here's the thing, though. You know, they're walking five run, five run limit for.
Mike00:02:59It's four run limit, actually. So it's even more. Yes. So it really snowflake kids today. I know. I know. But it actually keeps it moving. Here's the before I get into the scorekeeping and me. One other rule that I was talking to some of the other dads there, and I actually came out on the side in support of this rule, which is so you can steal a base on a past ball. You just can't steal. That's the only base you can't steal. And there was a little not rumbling, but just kind of like, I don't know how we feel about this. But, you know, as I was watching it in action, I realized this is a brilliant rule because with far fewer hits, the this stealing base and pass ball actually allows for much more fielding than would otherwise happen. Yes. And yeah, and it really gets the catcher and the pitcher and certainly the rest of the infield. But on alert, they're not just sitting there picking their noses while the pitchers, you know, trying to get balls over the plate. They have to pay attention. And and so I actually do like that anyway. So I'm keeping the book and I've kept a book before, but not a long time. And I don't remember it well. And it's hard. It is hard. It's a little forgiving for a little league, like really all they really wanted is the path. You know, fill out the path around the around the around the diamond, the score, obviously the pitch count. And, you know, and I would put in sort of what, you know, if there was a defensive play, which there were a couple, you know, if it was if it was a one three play, which I think most of them were, you know, to mark that down. So I did it. It was difficult. But, you know, it's again, I mentioned, you know, the dads are talking. And, you know, now that we've been in the little league for several seasons, several seasons, like I know a bunch of the dads and, you know, one of the dads was who was on this team last year. This kid was on the other team that we were playing and he comes over. We're talking and it's like we're having a good conversation. Oh, it's good to see you, man. I haven't seen you in a while, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized that I've got a job to do. Oh, yeah. You know, talk. Yeah, there's. And I realized I was being extremely rude. You know, I was like and then there was this recognition. Oh, wait, what am I doing? I can't be talking to the guy keeping the book. So it's a sacred honor. It's a sacred duty. I was glad to keep it going. I really don't want to do it every every every game. But there's an interesting I don't know if you have this had this experience, but there's an interesting additional. Now that we're at the level where there are umpires and an additional role for a parent volunteer to take during a game and it's only When you're the home team, so we were not the home team on this recent game, but we'll be the home team in the next game Most of the umpires in our little league are kids like the umpires that we had the other day Like not much older than Mike my eight-year-old And so the league has and maybe this is a little league across the country But our league has the position of game coordinator, which is a parent who never comes on the field of the home team whose job it is to To mediate any issues of other parents Arguing with the ref with the ups Right, so so it's an interesting and it's it's in a way. It's like you hate to see it, but it's a good thing They've got it Just in case just in case something like this happens because nobody wants to actually experience that so like having somebody who can step in And say hey cut it out like stop yelling at the refs or at the umps. I keep saying refs I haven't seen it in action. I imagine It's mostly needed at the upper levels, but I will I will keep not necessarily
JVL00:07:13I hope this is I hope not. I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents Are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right?
?00:07:26I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right? Right, I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right?
JVL00:07:26Right, I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right? Right, I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right? Right, I would say my own experience with this is that the worst parents are always have always been at the most meaningless levels, right? It's kind of like the kids who are the most marginal players right or you know, like you get there. They're the ones who are convinced that Johnny is basically look I understand that Johnny's only 10 but I think there could be scouts here. Why aren't you calling a block these rules a laughable sir. There is no block at the double A level. There is damn it.
Mike00:07:47No, it's like it's like they say it's the it's it's you know, the the politics of the humanities faculty lounge are the worst because the stakes are so low.
JVL00:08:00Yes.
Mike00:08:01Yeah. Yeah. So look, I mean, this is a little league that is it's it's been around for decades. It has, you know, people on the board whose kids have long graduated, you know, so it's so there's a good community around it. And there's. Been very little that I've seen from certainly from coaches and parents. So I'm hoping that stays the case, but I'm worried. And anyway, so that's that's maybe I'll get to be a game coordinator, which should be like the bouncer.
JVL00:08:33No, it's it's it's more like being a mediator, it sounds like, which honestly, it's natural for you because you're so good with people. Yeah, you're you're really good at that stuff.
Mike00:08:42Yeah. Until they tick me off. But no, you're right. It's it's. It's all good. So we'll see. But but opening day is this coming weekend. There's a parade and then we'll have to have a t-ball game and then a double A game. So looking forward to it. How about you, JVL? What's going on?
JVL00:08:58Well, I got a question for you about you. I mean, the most important thing about any little league organization is the quality of the snack stand. Ah, what is your snack stand like? Because the key is you've got to show up to these interminable games and you have younger children and you got to force your younger. Children. Just how else you can do that without playing them with dum dums and Twizzlers and sweet tarts and sour patch kids like that's that's why you need the snack that the ring pops. I believe the ring pops are the king of the little league snack stand because those things last for forever and the kids think they're special. Yep. How are you supposed to live through this without a snack stand?
Mike00:09:43Well, I don't know, because here's the thing. When I played, it wasn't an official. Little League, but it was it was, you know, literally type ball. When I was a kid, there was a snack stand and it was it was not only important for the parents, but it was the place to be when your brother was playing. I mean, I definitely flirted with some girls that I liked because they were playing softball and they were off. You know, I remember who she was. Her name was Hope. And the snack for me. So they had slush puppies, which were awesome to get hot dogs, obviously. Right. Oh, obviously, hot dogs and probably hamburgers. But the candy that opened my world was the atomic warheads.
JVL00:10:35Oh, yeah.
Mike00:10:37So that was like that was like candy in it was like a dare and candy format. And so it was like I remember when like it was like some bigger candy. It was like, you got to try one of these. They were like 10 cents and you get like a an atomic warhead. And it was like people would gather around and you like put it on your tongue and like see how long you last before you spit it out because you're so sour. So I don't know because we don't at none of the facilities for this little league. Are there any snack stands? So I don't know what we do for the kids, but I will tell you what I have discovered for the grownups. And we discovered it last year with this with all the liquor close. So we were on this. We were on a team in the last season of of Machine Pitch with the same coach that we have now. And so some of those kids are still on this team. And this was a great team. And we were new to it, but it had been together through like since like Coach Pitch and great team. Great. Group of parents. And they had like an unofficial thing. If they were the last game of the season of the of the night and on the field, bring a cooler of beer, surreptitiously pour it in to solo cups and just pass it around to any parent who wanted it. Well, guess what, JVL? Every single game this season is at six o'clock p.m. Last game of the night. Most of them are on Saturdays. We're getting wasted. We're going streaking.
JVL00:12:19Win or lose. That sounds amazing. I hope it will be arrested. I hope no one gets arrested for that.
Mike00:12:28It is so much tamer than I just made it out to be. But it is fun. And it's just a nice little thing to take the edge off of. Usually it's a little colder at the beginning of the season. The games go along. So we're excited. Baseball season's back.
JVL00:12:43Yeah, I have just come. I'm I'm two hours. Removed from the baseball field. Myself was out watching flashes team. I don't want to say too much about it. It's sort of a complicated story this season. But I will say this afternoon I sat outside in a shade under a tree on a day when it was 88 degrees with my laptop out in the outfield just working while there was baseball kid baseball happening in front of me. And it was. Absolute heaven. It was nothing better. Oh, my gosh. It was so nice. The only thing would have been better, honestly, is if there had been a snack, a snack stand.
Mike00:13:25So would you have gotten a ring pop? What would what would have been your snack stand?
JVL00:13:30I mean, diet, Pepsi and peanuts. Right. And maybe a hot dog or two. But unless they have funnel cake, if they have funnel cake, obviously funnel cake, funnel cakes, the best. So. That was my child free afternoon.
Mike00:13:49It was wonderful.
JVL00:13:50It was not child free at the movie theater. Super Mario Brothers.
Mike00:14:00The Super Mario Brothers movie, we should say, to distinguish it from the from the original 1993 nonclassic.
JVL00:14:09So I started talking about this movie as a looming box office behemoth like a month ago. Yes, you did. Just because I, you know, I have ears. I listen on the playground and I hear random children who I have no idea who they are of all ages talking about this movie a month ahead of time. I don't know where they're getting it. I don't know why they know that it's happening, but they were into it. They were dialed in. They were all talking April 5, April 5, going to go on April 5. And then I started texting you and Sonny with just, you know, seating charts of shows that were sold out at my local theater. The full day, you know, all day on the 5th, all day on the 6th, all day on the 7th. It wound up as the biggest, I think the five-day number is $250 million. It's the largest animated opening movie in U.S. history. It's the biggest movie of the year. It's going to make a billion dollars. One billion dollars.
Mike00:15:13One billion dollars.
JVL00:15:14And it is the rarest of things. It's the birth of a franchise. We are going to have Nintendo video game movies from here to sunset. We're going to get. I've already told you. My youngest, G-Money, came to me two days ago and said, Dad, Dad, I figured out who the villain is going to be in the sequel. I said, who are you? It's going to be Wario and Wai-Luigi.
Mike00:15:39I was like, you know what?
JVL00:15:40Fuck it. Yes, you're right. That's who it will be. You know, and then we'll wind up in three. We'll get. We'll get Metroid, right? We'll get Seamus or Samus, whatever that fucking guy's name is.
Mike00:15:50Samus, yeah. I don't even know that. Yeah, yeah.
JVL00:15:53This is our future. Totally. And I. Michael, would you care to give us a big boy review? Because you have seen it not once, but twice.
Mike00:16:04Twice. I have seen it twice. And before I get in my big boy review, I will just say that it does make you wonder. Because you're right. We are seeing the birth of a franchise. Why did it take this long? Maybe we can get into that later. But, yeah, let me give it a big boy review. So, the Super Mario Brothers movie is a joint production between who? Nintendo and who's the studio on this?
JVL00:16:35Illumination. Illumination, right.
Mike00:16:36The folks who brought us.
JVL00:16:38Minions.
Mike00:16:38That's right. The folks who brought us the Minions, as we were reminded in the opening production still. This is a story about Mario, his brother Luigi, and their entrance into the Mushroom Kingdom and their quest to, well, I guess Mario's quest to save his brother when they get lost in the world of the Mushroom Kingdom, of Bowser and all the rest. It's very unclear what this world is or what it's called. Super Mario World, but Super Mario World, I should say Mario and his brother Luigi come from Brooklyn. They come from, it's sort of back to roots. They are running a plumbing company. It's not going very well. They get sucked into a giant green pipe. They're spit out into the Mushroom Kingdom, except Luigi is spit out into another place called the Dark Worlds. They are separated. They are oddly separated for most of the movie, which is sort of an odd decision. And to make, Mario realizes that he has been separated. He meets the Toad. My kids know the name of this Toad. It's Explorer Toad or something. It's like a particular variant. That's what I called him, Toad. But no, he's the Explorer Toad because there's a bunch of different Toads. Anyway, he's led into the Mushroom Kingdom to meet Princess Peach, who turns out to be this kind of badass Super Mario. Warrior before even Super Mario is a thing. She agrees to help because what is happening, in addition to Luigi being stuck in the Dark Worlds, is Bowser, the King Koopa, is coming for the Mushroom Kingdom. He is coming to take it over. The intelligence service in the Mushroom Kingdom has informed the Princess. So they're going to take the fight to Bowser. Um, they go on all these adventures to do this, to take the fight to Bowser and rescue Luigi. Mario learns how to be Super Mario, learns how to use the power-ups, uh, the mushrooms and the rest. Uh, they go off to the kingdom of, uh, Donkey Kong to recruit the Kongs. They go on some more adventures that remind us of Mario Kart. They go off to face against Bowser. Oh, I forgot to mention Bowser wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, not, uh, to dominate, not to, uh, just steal, uh, the princess and, uh, and, and torture Mario, but because he wants to marry Princess Peach, uh, and take over this, uh, sort of amorphous world with her as his bride. Um, this movie includes the voice talents of Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, uh, Anya Joy Taylor, is that her name, as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser. Keegan-Michael Key as Toad. Uh, am I forgetting anybody, JVL? I don't think so. Uh, this, oh, and, um, uh, uh, what's his name? Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. Uh, stuff happens. It's a bunch of video game references. If you have ever played any Super Mario Brothers, uh, you will be titillated and excited and go, hey, I remember that. I know that reference. In the end of the day, the, you know, the heroes save the day. Everything is wrapped up nicely and, uh, the sequel is set up perfectly. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about this movie, except, uh, I saw it twice. I saw it with my oldest son and his friend on a spring break day. And then when he came home.
JVL00:20:35What was their reactions? First, I need, I need reactions.
Mike00:20:38So your oldest son is eight. He's eight. We're walking out of the theater and unprompted, he says to me. I think that was the best movie of the year.
JVL00:20:50Okay. And his friend also eight said. Yeah, I agree. Okay.
Mike00:20:56You then went back two days later, one day later, one day later, because of the word
JVL00:21:01of mouth in my house, very strong word of mouth in the Warren house.
Mike00:21:08That's right. And, uh, and the five-year-old in the Warren house, the cinema score, a plus plus. A plus plus. Uh, it is an elite, uh, score here. Um, he had, uh, he had school that week. He feel, he felt left out and he had an early release the next day. And I picked him up. I said, Hey buddy, guess what? We're going to go see super Mario brothers movie. And he lost it. So we went in this time. We didn't go to the Alamo. We went to, uh, the, what used to be the dollar theater is now like the $10 theater, um, uh, near George Mason university. Uh, it was packed to the brim, just like the Alamo draft house, uh, screening was packed to the brim and, uh, he loved it too. He did not like some of the scarier stuff, but in general, he loved it as well. I think frankly, and I would love to know your thoughts about this JVL. I think the movie itself is kind of garbage. Uh, it's not good. It makes no sense. It misuses. Some of the great voice cast, uh, it misuses some of the bad voice cast. I'm thinking of princess beach. I'm sorry to say, uh, we will get this. I will get canceled for this, but I think it is like the whole princess peach character is wrong and makes no sense and was annoying. And I just wanted, I thought, I guess I'm not watching a Mario movie. I'm watching a princess peach movie. Um, I don't know. I have lots of thoughts, a lot, but I just think it's, if you're looking to, for the, for the member balls, uh, on all of the Nintendo stuff, you'll get it. If you're looking for like an actual, like quality movie, uh, that, that, you know, with a beginning, middle and end with an arc for all these, like, you're not going to get it, but it doesn't matter because the kids want to see it. And they'll want to go see it again. And they'll want to go see it again. And it's going to make $1 billion. And that's the, that that's all she wrote. That's my thought.
JVL00:23:13So G money said to me. As we exited the theater, I think that might be the best movie I've ever seen. Right. And he then said to me, this is a kid who has seen a lot of movies. Like we, you know, he's my buddy. Like we, you know, we've seen the, into the spider verse and all the Spider-Man movies, but then he says to me, once this is out on streaming, I think I'll probably watch it every day. Yeah. I fucking hated this movie. So. So much. I haven't been, I haven't been angry at a kid's movie in a really long time. And I was angry at almost every frame of this thing because, uh, there, as you say, there is no story or to the extent that there is a story, it's, it's very, very minimal, it's bad and it's not good. Yeah. What it is is it, as you summed up, it's just reference after reference. After reference, there is a flashback. Why is there a flashback where Mario remembers what it was like when he and Luigi were little because baby Mario and baby Luigi are playable characters in Mario cart, this doesn't, this doesn't do anything for the character. We're not learning anything about the characters in this flashback. It's just a chance for, for 15 seconds to put two more recognizable avatars from the video games onto the screen.
Mike00:24:44And you know what JVL, it, it worked because at that scene, my five-year-old pointed to the screen and in the full theater goes, they're from Mario cart.
JVL00:24:57There's a scene where they are walking through, you know, on their adventure, the Lord of the Rings, and they, they walked past and you can see a bunch of Yoshi's running on the other side of a river. Why do you see it?
Mike00:25:06Because look at that Yoshi, that Yoshi, there are moments when, when the movie can
JVL00:25:14just have personality to it. Uh, there is a scene in which Bowser is sitting with his major Domo and he is at a piano and is playing the song that he has written himself for princess peach. And it's kind of funny in the sort of awkward, funny way, but it's not funny enough to be actually funny. And then it devolves into, oh, why are we at a piano so that as just sort of offhandedly tickling the ivories. We can get... Do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do.
Mike00:25:52Brr-brr-brr-brr-brr-brr. To play the coins. Oh, I hated that.
JVL00:25:58I... At every turn, at any moment where there was anything vaguely interesting in it, it just veered away. There's a single character which has some bit of light to it, and it is a blue power-up which is in a cage in the dungeon. And this blue power-up who talks, I'm sure there's like, it's like, oh, that's a sprite from Super Mario Galaxy World 7. Whatever.
Mike00:26:31I heard some kids explaining behind me what it was because I didn't know what it was.
JVL00:26:36This very happy-looking blue sprite who talks in a baby voice is basically Kafka. Yes.
Mike00:26:46Existential dread.
JVL00:26:47To give up and die. And even that gag is stolen from the Will Ferrell Funny or Die videos where, do you remember Baby Cop?
Mike00:26:57Yes.
JVL00:26:58Where the idea was that they had this little baby who was the cop who played by no rules who came in and would beat up on suspects and would say, so they'd get this little three-year-old saying, I'll see you in hell, right? And it was very, very... That's all this is. All this is is taking the Baby Cop gag and applying it for 10 seconds worth of run time in this fucking movie. And I... Everything about it is so lazy. The voice acting is so bad. Fuck, I fucking hate Chris Pratt. I really, I've gotten to the point where I just can't stand him and I want him to go away. And his Mario is the... one of the most phoned-in performances I've ever seen. Again, it's just barely there as a character. And the endless joke, Mamma Mia! How many times did we get the phrase Mamma Mia as the punchline of a joke? Seven? Probably. And here's the thing which really bugs me. My thesis on why this movie did $250 million and has headed towards a billion dollars is that it has nothing to do with the quality. Nothing even, not nothing, but not even so much about the IP. What it's really about is that we have gone four months without a family movie in theaters.
Mike00:28:37Yes.
JVL00:28:37And people are, the pent-up demand for parents to get their kids out of the fucking house and into a theater so they can just shut the fuck up for an hour 45, which, by the way, is what this is, with trailers. I mean, this thing is brisk. It's so barely there. Oh, yeah.
Mike00:28:54It's like, no, it's like 91 minutes long.
JVL00:28:57Right. The $250 million five-day total is largely a function of the fact that we just haven't been able to get our children, our precious, precious progeny, into a theater, into a theater, where they'll shut up for an hour 45 in four months. And this is a thing that we need movie theaters for. Yes. Don't blackball us, Mitch. We need this. We need places where, for the low, low price of $40, your child, you just pay $40, and your kid will shut the fuck up for an hour 40. Like, that's... I'm sorry. Parents reach the point in life where that is a trade they are willing to make.
Mike00:29:37Not every day, right?
JVL00:29:38Every day. Days are long, but the years are fast, Michael. And we are blessed to have, to have been entrusted by the good Lord for these precious souls. And I never wish any of it away or anything like that. But sometimes, sometimes you need an out. And that's one of the things that the movies are there for. And the studios have denied us that out for four months. And so parents were finally ready to just like, let's go. Let's go. We're going to see Super Mario. Brothers. And that's why this sorry, suck face movie made a quarter billion dollars in five days. Just for the United States.
Mike00:30:18Oh, yeah. No, I, I, I saw this in inaction, right? When I went back on Thursday. So Wednesday was technically the the pre day because it technically came in on Thursday. But I saw it on Wednesday when I went back on Thursday. So think about it. It's Thursday in the middle of spring break. In Fairfax County. All right.
JVL00:30:40Children have been home the five days already.
Mike00:30:45It is just burst this the line just to get into this. I mean, I did feel I texted you guys because this this theater is, you know, it's basically run by two guys. They've got three theaters. They were selling popcorn during the pandemic. You could drive up and get the popcorn hanging on by a thread. And the the one of the guys was like dressed up as Mario and like like he was like he was like a parody of, you know, the the the Carney, you know, go cut and step right up, step right up. He's like just breaking in the dollars. So these parents and their kids and there's like I'm seeing people I know at this theater, you know, just like schlepping schlepping there to get the kids in and and that's all it is. It is it is the less dire equivalent of of all those movies during the Great Depression that did so well because people were just going to the movies to get air conditioning. It it was it was it's a retreat but let's go back to this movie for a second because I have other complaints. I like maybe I'm giving it too much credit by even making these complaints, but I just want to outline a couple of the lazy
JVL00:32:01Yes, because lazy aspects of this. You said I have substantive complaints about it as a movie and I my ears pricked up and I was like, oh, please do tell. So
Mike00:32:11I already alluded to the thing and I this is not a this is not a anti woke or anything kind of rant of mine. It just as a matter of like storytelling and truth to the to the source material of or seriously, you can take that. I found the Princess Peach character and her part of the story to be baffling. It made no sense. She did not need Mario. Um, she did not like his entry into the story made no difference in her and what she was going to do. Um, in fact in many ways it delayed her because she had to spend a whole day training him up. Why did she have to train him up? Why did she care? Why did she just not have her little creepy toad stool guys just throw him out of the Mushroom Kingdom? I don't know. It makes no sense. Um, and then the climax of the movie, or one of the climaxes of the movie, because there's actually two. There's the wedding climax and then there's the fight in Brooklyn afterward. Don't get me started. Um, but the wedding climax where she's agreed to marry Bowser in order to save the Mushroom Kingdom. Um, she like goes up to get married to him. Mario is nowhere to be seen because he and Donkey Kong are off doing whatever. And like, it's the point of the movie where the hero who has descended, you know, remember, uh, your your hero's journey has descended into the depths of the ocean, uh, is supposed to come back and save the day at the last minute. But he doesn't. You know who does? Peach! She's like a Mary Sue. She does everything, you know, because she finds, she she's secret. So she gets up to the altar and then she just reveals that she was never going to marry him in the first place and she just starts kicking ass. Which is like, but so why did she agree to marry him? Why didn't she just kick his ass earlier? Make no sense. All of it was just, and it's as this woman, Anya Taylor Joy, Anya Joy Taylor, I don't know who she is. She was in The Queen's Gamut
JVL00:34:27I gather. She is, she is in basically 70 movies a year for the last two years. I don't know why. I don't know if this girl has beer flavored nipples or something, but Hollywood has decided that she must be cast in 30% of all movies being produced. And it's I don't know how she has the time to do it all. And she's terrible.
Mike00:34:50It wasn't good. She's not a good actress. I'm sorry. Certainly not a good voice actress. Have you seen her, Emma? No. I don't know who this woman is.
JVL00:35:01She did the remake of Emma as the title character and she was just fucking horrible.
Mike00:35:09Well, I have not done a line-by-line study of this, but I guarantee you Peach had as many lines as Mario and way more lines than Luigi. This is the Super Mario Brothers movie, JVL. Why is Luigi not in it?
JVL00:35:26Why is Luigi separated from Mario? Honestly, there is one part of the movie which works. And only one part. As we are in Brooklyn before we have gotten to Mario Galaxy World, there is a piece of business where they go on a plumbing call and we have a comedy of errors as they're in a very upscale brownstone in Brooklyn, one of the gentrified sections, and the people say, just please don't mess anything up. They say, of course. And one thing leads to another and it is physical comedy. And you know what? I think it works great. It's Abedin Costello. It's what it is. It's Abedin Costello. It's a 45 seconds worth of movie and it's great and it works and you're like, oh, this is when it's fun to have the two brothers together, right? The characters work together on the screen. And basically, within five minutes of that, in terms of runtime, they're separated and they don't get together again until the final season. Why
Mike00:36:39why it makes no sense. Why do this? And it's not only this, not only the separation, but because of that separation and because again, we're spending so much time with Princess Peach and we got to spend all this time at the Donkey Kong world, whatever the hell that is. Like in the bizarre time we spend in like the Coliseum fighting Seth Rogen. So we don't get any of Luigi and we don't get any of Charlie Day, who frankly is like, to me, was sort of a draw for this movie. I was like, oh, Charlie Day. I love Charlie Day. He's hilarious. He has an amazing voice. It is an expressive, funny, idiosyncratic voice. So let's give him 10 lines in the entire fucking movie and tell him to do them as quickly as possible so he doesn't even have any emotion to them and get the hell out of here and cash our checks. Another thing, JVL. Jack Black. Jack Black plays Bowser. Jack Black sings song, a song, I guess, sings a song twice in this. It's a garbage song. It is beneath the musical comedy stylings of Jack Black. He's giving it a half-assed... No, it's not.
JVL00:37:57No, it's not. Oh,
Mike00:37:59stop it. Stop it. Jack Black in his heyday was
JVL00:38:05incredible. Tenacious D! I'm Tenacious D! Look at me, LA hipster! Tenacious D! Fucking hate him, too.
Mike00:38:14It was awful, though.
JVL00:38:15The entire Donkey Kong portion of the movie probably shouldn't exist. That probably should have been held for the sequel. I assume they thought they needed to throw everything plus the kitchen sink into this. It does nothing for the story, and we've already now... done the Donkey Kong thing, and we've gone through the full arc of Mario and Donkey Kong becoming buddies. Right? And they're sort of fish out of water. Look, it's a... They're an odd couple. And we've done the odd couple funny buddy cop thing with the two of them, which could have been its own movie. Could have been an entire movie around that. For no narrative purpose, no storytelling purpose, and I think no commercial purpose. I don't think there's any real reason... Right? He could have just... Donkey Kong could have been the stinger. Donkey Kong could have been the stinger.
Mike00:39:13I have a creative purpose for it. Tell me. Could have been a stinger. The creative purpose of this was if we don't go to Donkey Kong Countryland, we only have 45 minutes of a movie, so we gotta pad this shit out.
JVL00:39:29So it would have required them writing more story. It would have required the... God forbid. Peach and Mario journey to be an actual journey instead of That's the weird... Again, like, look, I'm not asking for Fellowship of the Ring, right? I don't I don't need 15 minutes of B-unit footage and crane and helicopter shots on New Zealand showing us the amazing arduous journey as they go through ice mountains and dire... I don't need
Mike00:40:01any of that. It couldn't hurt. Couldn't hurt.
JVL00:40:03But if we are being told that they're about to undertake one of the most treacherous journeys in the world, it could have been longer than four seconds. Because this is how... I keep throwing time tags on this. But this movie operates at the level of seconds. Like, that's how thin it is, where you spend, you know, 15 seconds on this thing, four seconds on that thing. And I gotta say, the carelessness with which it is slapped together. Nintendo is notoriously protective of their brand. Right? I mean, Nintendo is very, very... They don't want to take risks with their intellectual property, and I understand that there's a lot of constraints that go along with that. But I don't know, man. To have a movie like this, which is... I mean, there's nothing... There's nothing knowing about it, right? I mean, most good kids' movies operate at a bunch of different levels, right? There's... There's the level for the kids, at which the kids are experiencing it. There is a level at which older kids are experiencing it, right? The older siblings have been dragged along to it, and then there's a level at which the parents are experiencing it. And good kids' movies, really good kids' movies, are able to work on all three of those levels, right? And often... It's a pyramid where the parents at the top see the other two, right? Puss in Boots, The Last Wish, which I just love the crap out of, is like that. The Despicable Me is like that to a certain degree, right? The extent to which this operates at only a single level, and it's the level of eight and younger, is astonishing to me. I can't... Honestly, I can't remember the last time I saw a kids' movie that was this unambitious as a piece of storytelling.
Mike00:42:05That's because it's not a movie, JVL. It is... an advertisement and propaganda.
JVL00:42:12Here's the thing. It's not even an advertisement. I would respect it more if this were like the G.I. Joe cartoons of my youth. If this was entertainment, it's honestly just a commercial, right? We tricked away to get people to choose to watch commercials. I would respect that, at least. This isn't even that. What this is doing is it's taking your... You've already bought these products. That's why you're in the theater. You're in the theater because you own all the products already. You don't need to be goaded into going and buying the new G.I. Joe vehicle or something like that. You have all the games at home. Everybody's already done that. It's like member berries. This is why I'm so angry. It's like member berries, but for eight-year-olds. You know what? Eight-year-olds don't fucking need member berries because for the eight-year-olds, it happened five minutes ago. If you want to defend the idea of the member berry as a mode of entertainment, at least the idea is like, well, it's got some deep pulls in it. You're hearkening back to you could say, if you're going to defend that, this piece of nostalgia based entertainment, which is throwing in a lot of references from 20 years ago, what it does is it evokes the feelings that you had, the 20 years younger version of yourself. Today, you are a parent with concerns and worries and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when you see these member berry jokes and references in Ready Player One, you think of a simpler time. This is like what Ready Player, I'm giving you the defense of that. For this, member berries for eight-year-olds is meaningless because it's just yesterday for them. That's all it is. I'm sorry. Well, I'm baffled.
Mike00:44:11No, I'm baffled. At every level, it makes no sense. And yet, it is. It will not just be hailed as one. It is a gigantic success financially. It's just a failure on every other level.
JVL00:44:30If I had to reach as far as possible to come up with something good to say about this, it would be that the Bar Qua movie has been set so low that the inevitable sequel has to be better. Right? And in fact, if the sequel is written with an eye towards any sort of ambition at all, it will seem like they finally did the Nintendo cinematic universe right. maybe. I mean, that's as far as I can go to good on this fucking piece of dog shit. And you know, the other thing I resent about it is that you and I and every other parent out there, we're going to watch this thing 30 more times. Totally. It's going to be on loop in our house the minute it comes to Amazon Prime or to HBO Max or I guess it'll be on Peacock. Max. Not HBO Max, just Max. It's cleaner. The minute it comes to the cock. We're going to have this thing on loop in our houses and I... Yeah.
Mike00:45:45The silver lining is it's only 90 minutes.
JVL00:45:50I guess. It could sit on your phone, right? Exactly. But I hate doing that. This is a thing I honestly hate doing. I hate being on my phone when I'm experiencing something with my kids because I feel like I should be present. Something like this is so bad that I'll be like, you know what? I'm not going to be present. I won't be present for this. I'm going to just hide in my little hand computer because this thing sucks so hard. There.
Mike00:46:16Well, maybe your kids will learn a lesson from that. They'll learn something. If daddy's looking at his phone, it's garbage. Yeah, I don't know. I don't have any other thoughts except it just the waste. You know what? Even though you know that the kids will want to keep watching it, like I haven't heard much about the movie actually since they saw it from
JVL00:46:44I wonder. That's a very interesting question. Will I mean, to what extent do do kids turn things into cult classics in their minds after the the rush of having the rush? Right, right. Because I don't know the answer to that.
Mike00:47:01Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, I just wonder if the staying power I mean when I have like when I first showed my kids Star Wars, it was very obvious that this was going to be on replay in our house over and over again and it is you know, being played out during sword fighting time or nerf gun fight like that left an impression from
JVL00:47:30the word go. They want to buy Lego sets that are shaped like Star Wars things.
Mike00:47:34Just like there's no question. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Mario? Oh no, no, no, no, no. No, but it's all about the games. Interestingly, my eight-year-old is playing Kirby right now, the Kirby for Nintendo Switch and I did he did kind of wonder to me, he goes I wonder why they didn't have Kirby in that movie. Yeah. They should have. I don't know.
JVL00:47:58You know what's funny is I so we have a Switch we only have like five games for it and the truth is we only ever play one game, which is Mario Kart. It's the only game we play. You know, every once in a while I'll go and buy something else and people will play, toy with these games for less than an hour and then they're like, nope, back to Mario Kart. Mario Kart's the only thing they like doing. Oh, interesting. Mario Kart is a great game. That is a truly fantastic game. I mean, the filmed version of Mario Kart takes this incredibly entertaining game and makes it boring.
Mike00:48:40Oh, that takes some doing. Yes.
JVL00:48:42That takes some doing. We get like seven minutes of Mario Kart in this thing and it's just, you know, yawn. Can we move on to the next thing?
Mike00:48:51But what about the blue shell and it went Oh, he turned into a blue shell
JVL00:48:57because everybody hates the blue shell with the wind. And it spun around.
Mike00:49:03Remember that? Remember that?
JVL00:49:05Alright, that's all the time we're giving to this show. We're gonna do a bonus where we're going to rank the top five Nintendo games of all time, each of us, and then you guys can decide which of us is correct. Very excited for that. That's gonna be a really, really fun thing we're gonna do. Oh yeah. That's all the time we're giving for this episode. You can find us at subbeacon.com and join the Patreon for the special members only bonus shows. Go to TeePublic, get some of our cool t-shirts. I actually need to go and order a couple more. We'll see you again next time! So what do you got for me? Any outtakes?
Mike00:49:56I did not realize that Toad was Keegan-Michael Key until the credits. He's a real actor?
?00:50:06I...
Mike00:50:07I don't know. I didn't even know what it was. It was... Oh, and here's another thing. Here's another thing that made me mad. It was the way that the references... It wasn't just that the references were there. It was the way they were tossed off. Like, almost like they were just shoving in as many as they could. And it was the one that enraged me was the stupid princesses in another castle joke. I can't even call it a joke. It made no sense. It had... It was like, what do we make him say? Oh, I got it. We'll have him say the phrase... Like, it was so stupid. I hated it. I hated every decision about it. I hated this fucking movie. I'm sure it's fine.
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