With fans flocking to finally catch a glimpse of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Seth Rogen (responsible for lending his golden pipes to Donkey Kong), has shared his thoughts on past iterations of everyone’s favorite plumbing brothers. In an interview with Variety, Rogen discusses what attracted him to The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the first place — and more importantly, how the 1995 live-action adaptation Mario Bros. broke his little 11-year-old heart.
“When I was 11, I saw the original Mario Bros. movie and I was so excited. But it’s one of the worst films ever made. I was so disappointed. I think it made me realize that movies, like, could be bad. That never occurred to me until that moment. It really bummed me out.”
Rogen would go on to explain that his participation in this animated adventure was a true labor of love, wherein he hoped to entertain all the kids out there simply looking for a good Mario movie.
“It’s nice to vindicate that moment. It’s nice to know that 11-year-olds out there that they won’t be disappointed in the same way that I was.”
As far as we’re concerned, all The Super Mario Bros. Movie needs to do is be a good time. Give us a decent story, some game references, some interesting visuals, and we’re all set. Thankfully, it seems that’s exactly what the minds at Nintendo and Illumination have done.
When talking about what it really means to voice an animated character, especially one like Donkey Kong, Seth Rogen said it was pretty straightforward.
“It’s nice because when you’re doing a voice, you just get to focus on coming up with jokes that maybe children will laugh at.”
Frankly, a lot rides on The Super Mario Bros. Movie. If it does well, the floodgates for other game-themed animated stories could be left wide open. If it fails, not so much. Currently sitting at a 53 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, things don’t look great for The Super Mario Bros. Movie — at least for now.
With a surprisingly high audience score of 97 percent, we’d like to think that when it comes to Mario, most non-critics might know a bit more than someone paid to review movies for a living.
But what do we know? Go see the movie for yourself and get back to us. If anything else, you’ll at least have fun.
