eurogamer.net
Matt Wales
After a solid first showing for the long-awaited Super Mario Bros. Movie in October, Nintendo has returned with a second action-packed trailer, this time giving us a first proper look at Peach, Donkey Kong, and a delightful karting cameo for Rainbow Road.
In fact, it’s a bit of a treat for Mario fans all-round, casting its net wide to introduce a host of familiar faces, places, and power-ups, all given a vibrant movie makeover. It’s the first time we get to hear Anya Taylor-Joy’s no-nonsense Princess Peach, for instance, as well as Charlie Day as Luigi, and Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong, even though the latter’s debut was mainly just a grunt.
Elsewhere, the trailer delivers a breakneck tour of the movie’s beautifully reimagined Mushroom Kingdom, giving us a stroll across a bridge amid of flurry of Cheep Cheeps, a glimpse inside Peach’s castle, and, of course, the crowd-pleasing addition of karts hurtling across Rainbow Road.
There’s also a classic Mario level hovering in the sky, Tanooki Mario, a Fire Flower, a cavalcade of Yoshis, and what might well be the first time Mario has ever been seen doing some actual plumbing. Oh, and as widely speculated, it does indeed appear that Mario and Luigi have both somehow been hoovered out of the real world and into the Mushroom Kingdom.
About the only thing we didn’t get was a substantial blast of Chris Pratt as Mario, with the trailer once again relegating his vocals to the odd Mario catchphrase here and there.
Of course, Pratt’s casting remains controversial. Following October’s trailer debut, voice actor Tara Strong (Harley Quinn, Batgirl, Fairly Odd Parents’ Timmy Turner) penned a series of tweets lamenting the decision not to cast long-time Mario voice actor Charles Martinet in the lead role. “Voice actors – I’m gonna put my heart and soul in this for at least 20 years, help sell billions in merch, make the studios millions of dollars and make generations around the world happy. Hollywood – We don’t care,” she wrote.
Former Luigi actor John Leguizamo also chimed in, saying he considers film studio Illumination’s decision not to cast an actor of colour in a lead role for the movie to be “backwards”.
Still, this latest look at the Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bit of a delight, with bags of references for long-term fans to revel in, a largely game cast, and a load of Mario charm. We’ll know how it all comes together when the film arrives in cinemas on 7th April next year.
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