Monthly Archives: April 2026

Tinseltown Throwdown

Tinseltown Throwdown – The Prince of Egypt vs. The Ten Commandments

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There probably is no story in scripture that lends itself more to the cinematic experience than that of the Exodus.  Well, that certainly is what Hollywood believes.  The story of the Moses and his liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt has all the hallmarks of a great epic adventure; charismatic lead hero, exotic locales, and the might of God manifesting through grandiose miracles from heaven.  While it all has the makings of a great movie plotline, it’s also important to know that the story of the Exodus is a cornerstone text in three of the world’s largest and most important religions.  Bringing these kinds of stories to the big screen takes a certain amount of care and consideration.  While biblical stories have been a part of filmmaking since the inception of the artform, they particularly became a big deal in the post-war years.  With the development of newer technologies like widescreen and stereo sound making it more possible to do large scale epic filmmaking, Hollywood was in search for stories that had the grandiosity to match the expanded limits of the technology, and the ones from the Bible fit the bill.  It also came at a time when evangelical religious movements were on the rise in America, and they saw the power of cinema as a useful tool in spreading the teachings of the Bible.  While many filmmakers working in Hollywood were for the most part secular in their work, even on adapting stories from the Bible, there were others who made a concerted effort to use their movies to push forward biblical teachings.  One of those filmmakers was Cecil B. DeMille, one of the most powerful and respected filmmakers in the business.  DeMille’s career went all the way back to the early days of Hollywood, directing his first film in 1914.  He would be one of the founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the ones who created the Oscars) and he directed 81 movies over 50 years.  He was also a controversial figure in Hollywood, being an ardent supporter of the blacklist.  Even still, no one doubted his skill as a filmmaker, and no other movie displayed that more than his own adaptation of the biblical Exodus story, The Ten Commandments (1956).

DeMille’s 1956 version of The Ten Commandments, would actually be his second attempt at adapting the Exodus story, as he had already made the film before in 1923.  While there are some parallels between the two versions, the 1923 Ten Commandments actually only uses the biblical tale as half the film, with the second half devoted to a modern day set morality tale in which the Commandments themselves play a part.  In the 30 years between DeMille’s two films of the same name, the director had gained a lot more clout as a filmmaker and he was determined to use that to make the Biblical movie to outshine them all.  Unbeknownst to him at the time, the latter Ten Commandments would be his swan song as a director as the then 74 year old filmmaker would see his health decline in the aftermath of making the film, passing away only 3 short years later.  Despite the grueling undertaking that went into the making of the film, the results speak for themselves.  When people think of biblical epics, this is likely going to be one of the first movies to come to mind.  Everything about the movie is grand in scale, with unparalleled production values that still impress today, especially with the exterior and interior sets.  And for the next thirty years, it would set a gold standard for how to adapt a biblical story to the big screen, especially for the story of the Exodus.  But, in 1998, a newly formed animation studio saw the Exodus story as potential for their first big feature film.  Dreamworks Pictures had only just formed in 1994 and they were already aiming to take on Disney as the dominant force in the animation industry, with former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg heading the animation department.  He and his studio partners Steven Spielberg and David Geffen picked the story of Moses as their first animated feature, and their aim was to help bring a new modern sensibility to this 3,000 year old tale.  Of course, they had to rise out of the shadow of the DeMille classic and that was no easy feat.  But The Prince of Egypt became a classic in it’s own right after it first premiere, becoming the first non-Disney animated film to cross the $100 million mark at the box office, and also winning an Oscar for Best Original Song.  Both films take very different approaches to telling the same biblical story and it’s interesting seeing how both reflect the different times in which they were made with regards to both filmmaking and religion.

“Tell me this Moses.  Why is it that every time you start something, I’m the one who ends up in trouble.”

One of the biggest things that the two movies differ on is their approach to the character of Moses.  They both take on the character from the same starting point, which in fact differs greatly from the original biblical text.  While the Bible does state that Moses was raised as an Egyptian after his Hebrew mother sent him away for his own protection during a purge of newborn children ordered by the Pharoah, it remains vague about who ended up raising him.  The movies, however, state that Moses was not only raised in an Egyptian household, but in the royal court of the Pharoah as a Prince.  This interpretation mainly comes from the 1949 fictionalized novelization of the biblical story from Dorothy Clarke Wilson titled Moses, The Prince of Egypt.  Cecil B. DeMille clearly drew inspiration from this re-telling of the story, along with many other sources, to help flesh out Moses’ backstory.  It’s one thing for Moses to be an instrument for God’s liberation of the Hebrews from bondage, but it makes the transformation all the more interesting to see him begin as someone who was so close to the Egyptian throne to begin with.  Both Ten Commandments and Prince of Egypt use this as the starting point, but where they differ very much comes down to the casting of the character.  Charlton Heston had long been a favorite for the role since DeMille had work with him in the Oscar winning The Greatest Show on Earth (1952).  The statuesque actor had all the gravitas and presence to bring this larger than life character faithfully to the big screen, and he also shared DeMille’s sense of religious fervor.  For the role, Heston actually had two roles to play; one as Moses the Prince and the other as Moses the Prophet.  The latter is the performance that most people are familiar with, showing Heston at his most theatrical.  Indeed, one of the things that unfortunately has not aged well over the years is the style of performances in The Ten Commandments.    Most of the actors in the movie are hamming it up considerably in their roles, including Heston.  Some performances fair better than others, but it’s clear that DeMille was still directing his actors like he was during the silent era.  For Heston, his performance still remains powerful, but his best moments occur before he goes big as the Prophet Moses; showing more subtlety when he’s playing the Prince.  Even still, he does carry some of the film’s grandest moments, especially in the parting of the Red Sea scene.

“Let my people go!”

For the animation medium, Dreamworks needed to find the right kind of actor who could bring Moses to life purely through his voice alone.  They ended up landing on Val Kilmer, who had never delivered a voice over role before.  Kilmer was already a leading man in Hollywood by this point, having just recently put in his time as Batman in Batman Forever (1995).  However, taking on a role as iconic as Moses would be risky for anyone, and Kilmer didn’t exactly leap to mind for most people.  But, Val proved that he was upped to the task, and in a way his vocal performance is one of the best parts of the film.  His performance feels remarkably natural, helping to make Moses feel like a true human individual, rather than the larger than life figure that Charlton Heston turns him into.  Kilmer’s Moses is far more soft spoken, which makes him in many ways more relatable and sympathetic.  While Heston’s Moses is going for theatrics, Kilmer’s is trying to create a better idea of what kind of person Moses would be.  There’s passion in his voice to be sure, but also a lot of heart, and Kilmer brings a lot of warmth to the character as a result.  The animators also do a great job of bringing Moses to life, complimenting Val’s vocal performance very well.  Like with Heston’s version, the animated Moses goes through a transformation, from manicured Prince to scraggly Prophet, and they both sport a similar look in the latter version with the long flowing Levite cloak.  It’s impressive knowing that this was the first animated film out of the gate for Dreamworks Animation, and sadly the start of an ever so short run with traditional animation before the success of Shrek (2001) killed it at the studio.  A lot of the reason why the animation looks so good is because Katzenberg managed to poach a lot of talent away from Disney when he left.  This included an animator named James Baxter, who previously animated characters like Belle, Rafiki, and Quasimodo at Disney.  Baxter’s contributions were especially critical in adding emotional acting into the animation of Moses throughout the film.  It’s also interesting to not that in both versions of the story, the voice of God is performed by the same actor who plays Moses, with both Heston and Kilmer pulling double duty in those two key roles.

Of course, as important as it is to get the character of Moses right in the story, it’s also important to make his adversary the Pharoah work as well on screen.  The Pharoah is never named in the Bible, but many scholars have theorized that the timeline of the Exodus lines up with the reign of Rameses II, the longest serving Pharoah in Egyptian history with an over 60 year rule.  Whether this is accurate to history or not, Rameses does make for an interesting counterpoint to Moses in both films.  But it is also interesting in how the two films differ in the dynamic between the characters.  In The Prince of Egypt, Rameses and Moses start of as loving brothers, with Moses often being the troublemaker that gets Rameses in hot water.  He’s voiced in the film by Ralph Fiennes, who does great job evolving Rameses from a loving older brother in the first half to a smiteful adversary in the second half.  Fiennes is no stranger to playing great cinematic villains, but Rameses is a more complex character than you would expect for a version of this story that is literally animated.  There’s regret in his vocal performance as he turns more venomous, hinting that a part of Rameses still wishes he could continue to love his brother even as this conflict drives them apart.  There’s a fantastic sequence of animation in the film where we see Rameses go through a whole range of emotions after Moses returns his royal sigil ring to him, signaling that their kinship has come to an end.  The way that Rameses goes from disappointment, to sadness, to pained turmoil and then ultimately vengeful hatred all through facial expression alone is a masterclass in animation, done by veteran animator Darlie Brewster.  But as strong as this version of Rameses is, there still nothing that matches the iconic work done by Yul Brynner in DeMille’s classic.  The version of Rameses in The Ten Commandments starts off as antagonistic to Moses from the get-go.  Rameses in this version is petty and smiteful from the beginning, and while it doesn’t offer the same kind of tragic arc that the animated version gives us, Brynner nevertheless makes Rameses an incredibly memorable villain.  His presence is a perfect counterpoint to Heston’s Moses, doing a whole lot more by never going over the top.  Brynner’s stoic demeanor makes his Rameses all the more intimidating, painting the character as far more tyrannical than he is in the animated version.  When you see him break and finally set the Hebrews free, it feels all the more triumphant in the film because of just how powerful we’ve seen him portrayed up to that point.

“There is one thing he cannot take away from you: your faith.  Believe, for we will see God’s wonders.”

One of the other major differences between the films is the fact that The Prince of Egypt is far more streamlined in it’s re-telling of the story than The Ten Commandments.  DeMille’s epic, like most other spectacles of the era, was produced as a Roadshow event picture, meaning it had an epic runtime of over 3 and a half hours with an Intermission.  Even with a story as monumental as the Exodus, 3 1/2 hours still gives you a lot of space to tell that story.  While Cecil B. DeMille does manage to use a lot of that runtime well, there are still moments when the movie lags, particularly in the dialog heavy parts.  Other epic movies of the era like Ben-Hur (1959) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) managed to make you forget about the lengthy runtimes by keeping things engaging and having scripts with a lot of witty, well written dialogue scenes.  Ten Commandments unfortunately is written in an old fashioned way, which makes you very well aware of how unnatural it all is, and that unfortunately causes you to feel the lengthy run time all the more.  The movie only picks up when we get to the iconic epic moments when DeMille can show off his skill at directing action.  By contrast, The Prince of Egypt manages to cover the same ground and do it all in less than half the time it takes The Ten Commandments to do it.  At a brisk 98 minutes, The Prince of Egypt manages to keep things moving by sticking to the essentials.  It does this by keeping the story focused on Moses.  Ten Commandments has numerous subplots going on alongside Moses’ story, some of which feel superfluous.  The characters of Joshua, Lillia, and Dathan for example are nowhere to be seen in Prince of Egypt, and neither is Rameses’ queen Nefetiri.  Nefetiri, played in Ten Commandments by actress Anne Baxter, is one of that film’s highlights because of Baxter’s campy over-the-top performance.  But, it is clear why Prince of Egypt chooses to exclude her, because she’s ultimately there to be the fire that fuels Moses and Rameses’ rivalry, which is not something that defines their relationship in this film.  Because of that change in the dynamic, The Prince of Egypt uses it’s time to flesh out other characters that didn’t get much to do in The Ten Commandments, like Moses’ true siblings Aaron and Miriam (voiced by Jeff Goldblum and Sandra Bullock) and his wife Tzipporah (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer).

It’s also interesting that even with the length of time that The Ten Commandments has, it still rushes through some of the iconic moments in the Exodus story.  The 10 Plagues are surprisingly glossed over in the film, with only 3 actually shown on screen; the Nile water turning to blood, the fiery hail, and the angel of death.  The Prince of Egypt on the other hand not only shows every single plague, they also do so in a 2 1/2 minute song sequence.  That’s the other big difference between the movies; The Prince of Egypt is also a musical, very much in line with the Disney Renaissance era revival of the movie musical format.  While a lot of the songs (featuring lyrics written by Stephen Schwartz, the future creator of Wicked on Broadway) are pretty strong throughout, “The Plagues” is a particular highlight, and does what a lot of great musical storytelling can do which is to deliver a huge amount of story in a quick amount of time.  The animation in that sequence is also some of the best in the film, especially that iconic split screen between Moses and Rameses at the end of the song.  But, even as The Prince of Egypt uses it’s musical sequences to condense the story down to it’s bare essentials, it also speeds through moments that have more weight in the Ten Commandments.  While their Red Sea sequence is impressive, the version of the scene in DeMille’s film just feels more epic.  It perhaps has to do with the fact that the sequence involves physical actors contrasting with the visual effects.  The parting of the sea was a breakthrough moment for visual effects back in it’s day, winning the film an Oscar in that category.  While it’s easy to pick out the seams now, the effect still feels grandiose, and the movie allows for the scale to be felt.  The Ten Commandments was shot in the Vistavision process, the closest thing that the 1950’s had to what we know now as IMAX, so this was a sequence that demanded to be seen on the biggest possible screen.  In animation, this same sequence gets stylized to match the visual aesthetic of the film, and as a result it makes the sequence feel less tangible.  A lot of Ten Commandments appeal comes from the fact that a lot of the sets were really built to scale in the movie.  DeMille even went as far as to shot several sequences in the real Egypt.  And you definitely get a sense of wonder when you see the Exodus realized with a cast of literally thousands of extras.

“So it shall be written.  So it shall be done.”

There have been other adaptations of the Exodus story, including a rather boring one from Ridley Scott called Exodus: God and Kings (2014).  To date, the ones that are of any note are Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments and Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt.  Where DeMille’s epic film version excels is with it’s ambition.  It is quite literally one of the biggest and boldest movies ever made; a great final hurrah from one of Hollywood’s pioneers.  It does suffer from the fact that a lot of it’s elements (particularly the dialogue and some of the performances) have not aged well over the years.  Compare this with another Charlton Heston led epic movie, Ben-Hur.  Ben-Hur touches on religious themes too, but does so with subtlety in it’s performances and more natural sounding dialogue.  Ten Commandments looks amazing, but feels like a relic of it’s time because no one in it acts or sounds like real people.  Meanwhile, The Prince of Egypt does the best job it can to bring this story up to date with cinematic standards of today.  It’s animation is world class, and remarkably refined for a first feature from a newly formed studio.  It also gets the point of the story across much more efficiently.  What it ultimately comes down to in the long run is personal taste.  I get the feeling that more religious minded people may prefer The Ten Commandments, because it does come across like a cinematic version of a sermon at times.  And more secular audiences probably prefer The Prince of Egypt with it’s more universal themes that transcend the story’s religious roots.  The Ten Commandments stands as a more important part of movie history, but The Prince of Egypt is ultimately a better movie overall.  One thing that I especially like about the approach that Prince of Egypt represents is the fact that they treat the story of Moses as a very human story rather than a religious one.  At the end of the credits, the movie lists passages from the Bible, the Torah and the Koran all mentioning Moses as a key scriptural figure in all three religions.  It shows that they weren’t treating this movie as a tool for evangelizing their audience, but rather reminding us the importance of telling stories across generations that help to inspire harmony among all people.  DeMille wasn’t using his film to place one religion over another either, as he consulted many religious scholars across the spectrum of faith during the making of his film, but he was still ultimately making the movie for the purpose of instilling lessons from the bible on his audience.  The Ten Commandments is monumental, but also anchored by it’s own pious shortcomings, while The Prince of Egypt succeeds by accomplishing more through doing less.

“Look at your people, Moses.  They are free.”

Movie Reviews

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie – Review

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It’s strange to think that even just 10 years ago that it was considered cinematic suicide to make a movie based on video games.  Hollywood for many years before had tried to take their shot at capturing the zeitgeist that was the video game boom, but any attempt only resulted in colossal failure.  One of the earliest attempts was an adaptation of the Super Mario Brothers video games from Nintendo in 1993.  That film, starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper went completely bust at the box office and went on for years as being the cautionary tale that prevented movie studios from ever making a movie based on a video game ever again.  While there were some smaller attempts to bring video game movies to the big screen, especially in the horror genre like the Resident Evil series, the big studios pretty much refrained from ever trying to tackle video game adaptations again.  That was until the last few years, and specifically with the little blue blur that is Sonic the Hedgehog.  The Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) movie didn’t become a reality very easily, as it famously had to be put on hold and fixed in post after the negative reception to Sonic’s CGI model was shown in the first trailer.  In this case, the studio making the film (Paramount) learned a crucial lesson that when the audience asks for authenticity in the adaptation of their favorite video games, it’s better to take their inputs seriously.  Sonic’s new CGI model was made more in line with how he looks in the games and the troubled film managed to become a surprise hit, even before Covid began to shut everything down.  Since then, Sonic the Hedgehog has spawned a franchise of two more films (and a third one on the way), with each one becoming bigger than the last.  What was learned from the Sonic experience was that it was better for Hollywood to not try to force these game franchises to be more cinematic, but to instead embrace the wild and colorful aesthetics of the games that audiences already love.  And since then, video game movies have boomed and become a new craze in Hollywood.  The Sonic movies continue to do well, and just last year we saw a huge box office run for A Minecraft Movie (2025).  But as far as video game movies go, no one has represented the recent boom better than that lovable Italian plumber, Mario.

Nintendo partnered up with the wildly successful Illumination animation studio (the same people who brought us the Minions) to bring their flagship franchise to the big screen.  The match seemed pretty ideal.  The Mario Bros. games are bright and colorful with simple aesthetics that appeal to a broad audience, which is pretty much the in house style of Illumination as well.  What did surprise a lot of people, however, was the announcement of an all-star voice cast to play the roles of the iconic role of Mario and company.  Some of the casting made sense, like Charlie Day as Luigi and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, but others left people scratching their heads; none more so than Chris Pratt cast in the role of Mario himself.  Pratt is no stranger to voice acting, with some standout performances in The Lego Movie (2014) and Pixar’s Onward (2020).  But he was certainly not what everyone expected when they thought of a voice for Super Mario himself.  Even still, the movie hit theaters in the Spring of 2023 and it shattered multiple records at the box office.  The movie would go on to gross over $1.5 billion worldwide, with a full third of that coming from the North American market alone, where it crossed the half billion mark.  With The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Hollywood now could see that video game movies indeed had huge box office potential.  Pretty soon a huge number of other video game adaptations were put into production, including a long awaited live action adaptation of Nintendo’s other massive franchise, The Legend of Zelda.  But, the question for the Mario series was where it was going to go next.  The Mario game series itself has gone through numerous phases itself, as it’s expanded into so many different worlds ever since Mario jumped his way through the Mushroom Kingdom in the original NES classic.  So, for Nintendo and Illumination, it made sense to look at the game that more than any other expanded the reaches to the world of Mario; Super Mario Galaxy.  The interstellar adventure took Mario to many far flung worlds across the universe, and this seemed to be the ideal place to go for a movie sequel.  The only question is, does The Super Mario Galaxy Movie succeed in opening up the possibilities of the Mario movie franchise, or does it double down on some of it’s shortcomings.

The story takes place some time after the events of the first movie.  Mario (Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day) have settled themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom and now spend their time helping the citizens of that world with their various plumbing related problems.  On one mission, they come across a pipe located in a desert pyramid that seems to have been taken over by a mysterious creature.  Upon investigating, they learn that the creature is a little baby dinosaur named Yoshi (Donald Glover), who becomes instant friends with the brothers.  Meanwhile in another far off part of the galaxy, the home of the mystical star Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is attacked by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), who’s on a mission to steal Rosalina’s power and rescue his father Bowser (Jack Black), who is still imprisoned in the Mushroom Kingdom for his crimes.  One of Rosalina’s star children makes it to the castle of Princess Peach (Anya-Taylor Joy) and tells her that Rosalina has been kidnapped.  Without telling Mario about what has happened, Peach goes out to search for clues about Rosalina’s disappearance, along with her resourceful companion Toad (Keegan-Michael Key).  Mario and Luigi are left to look after the Mushroom Kingdom, which includes keeping an eye on Bowser, who swears that he is reformed.  Unfortunately for them, Bowser Jr. sneaks his way into the Mushroom Kingdom and ambushes them, leading to the destruction of Peach’s castle.  Mario, Luigi, and Bowser manage to escape, but they now have to catch up to Peach so they can warn her that Junior is out looking for her too.  Peach eventually learns that Rosalina is being held captive at the Bowser Planet and she needs to hire a pilot to get her there to attempt a rescue.  Thankfully one is available named Fox McCloud (Glen Powell).  Will Peach and the Mario Brothers manage to save Rosalina in time, or will Bowser Jr.’s plan for the destruction of the universe bring an end to all of them.

To be frank, I was not a fan of the first Mario Bros. Movie.  I felt that it was overstuffed with too many game Easter eggs that was made to satisfy the hardcore fans of the game, but lacked a coherent story to make all of those references resonate.  I cared very little about what was happening, because the movie never allowed for crucial things like character or world building to take hold in the experience.  More than anything, it failed at being anything more than just a glorified commercial for the games.  When they announced that they were making a sequel (which was a no-brainer given the box office success of the first) and that it would be based on the classic Galaxy games, I thought that this made a lot of sense, because the Galaxy games did such a good job of expanding the reach of places that Mario could go to.  My hope was that with this expanded universe that we would actually see more creativity in the storytelling and have a more coherent plot overall, instead of things just being a collection or reference and gag set-ups.  Sadly, the Mario Galaxy does not improve on any of the problems of the first film.  In fact, it just doubles down on not caring about the plot at all.  The Super Mario Galaxy Movie just moves along from scene to scene without regards to things like theme, character motivations, or just tone in general.  Stuff just happens, and that’s pretty much the overall experience of the movie.  The film seems more concerned about throwing every possible reference to the games that they can think of purely to get a reaction of recognition out of it’s audience.  It’s the most “member berries” movie that I have seen in quite some time; even more so than the first film, which at least had to do some work in order to lay the rules for the world they were creating in the film.  For me, this film represents all that I dislike about the house style of Illumination.  They are gag factory more than anything else, with story being an afterthought.  Sure, this makes their movies appeal to the broadest possible audience, and they have the box office success to show for it, but the stories in their movies always ring hollow because there is no thought put into them.  They are the anti-Pixar in this manner, and it makes it all the more frustrating that this is the approach they are taking to bringing the world of Super Mario to life.

One of the clearest examples of the story not meaning anything to the makers of this film is the lack of care put into establishing the characters and why they are important.  The introduction of Yoshi in particular felt rushed and wasted.  Pretty much the way that it goes down in the movie is that Mario and Luigi find Yoshi and he takes a liking to them and now he’s just a part of the team.  This abrupt approach is even called out in the movie by one of the character’s who says, “Okay, so he’s just a part of the group now.”  It’s like even filmmakers knew how lame this intro was.  Mario meeting Yoshi for the first time should feel special, and it sadly is not.  This is a recurring theme throughout the movie, where so many things that should carry a weight of importance just don’t.  Now of course this a Mario Bros. movie, so we aren’t exactly dealing with Shakespeare here.  But, there have been plenty of other animated films made in the past that managed to find some emotional depth in places you’d never expect; The Lego Movie being a prime example.  The Illumination Mario movies just never allow for any of that because they are too busy trying to cram in gags and Easter eggs to please the die hard fans.  They don’t want us to feel, they just want us to react.  Are some of the visual gags clever?  A few do get a laugh, and some of the video game references are clever.  But, that’s all that this movie ends up being.  It makes it all the more disappointing given that there was a lot of potential with this movie.  The galaxy is literally open to explore endless possibilities.  But what we end up getting is movie that never fully commits to a plot thread or a creative vision.  What it just does overall is remind you how much better it was when you were playing the games that these movies were based on, especially the classic Mario Galaxy games.  At least with those you could self insert your journey with Mario’s as he travels from world to world.

The sad thing about the shortcomings with the story is that it wastes what is definitely a talented team of animators.  There are certainly far fewer complaints that I have with the overall look of this film.  Illumination has done a good job of translating that Nintendo style into their own.  Mario and his friends always look on model and always are animated with a lot of personality.  The film also does well in creating a sense of scale for these films.  The Mushroom Kingdom is a wonderfully realized place, and it’s great to see how the animators take things that were originally two dimensional in the old platform games and give them weight and texture to help make this a fully lived in world.  They also do well in crafting the many different new world that we visit across the galaxy.  Mario Galaxy was already a very well detailed game for it’s time, and the movie does a good job of recreating iconic places from the game, especially Rosalina’s space ship/palace.  One thing that I wish they had played around with a bit more is the gravity mechanics that were such a big part of the game.  One of the great innovations of the Mario Galaxy game was the way that gravity worked as a part of the game play experience; where you could jump from one small planetoid to another and the pull of gravity would allow you to make that leap, as well as be able to fully run around the planet, including the underside where you’ll be upside down.  The movie doesn’t get to play around with that game mechanic too much, apart from a scene where Peach and Toad arrive at an underground casino, where characters are walking around the space on the floor level as well as the walls and ceiling, similar to how it worked in the game.  It makes the scene one of the few highlights, and I wish there were more moments like that.  It would’ve been neat to see Mario and his crew make these leaps of faith in empty space to go from one tiny planet to another.  The animation team should be given better material to work with, because they clearly are doing their job right.  For whatever reason, the film’s directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (who have returned from the first film) just don’t have the drive to do much more with the Mario Bros. property than what they have.  They follow the Illumination formula to a fault and if there was ever a movie that demanded some bold creative choices, this is the one.

The movie’s cast is also a mixed bag.  One of the things that I think is another of Illumination’s faults is that they tend to value marquee names for their voice roles over actors who would be clearly better as the character.  In some of the cases, they do get it right here in the Mario movie.  Charlie Day is honestly the best possible choice for Luigi, and Jack Black was the biggest scene stealer of the first film with his hilarious take on Bowser.  Both Day and Black return here, and are still doing great work as these characters, especially Jack Black who continues to be the MVP.  But, I’m sorry, Chris Pratt just doesn’t work as Mario.  His performance just lacks what the character needs, and all I hear is just Pratt reading the lines and not trying to get into the character of Mario, and it’s distracting.  I was hoping he would improve between movies, but alas his Mario still feels out of place with the rest of the movie.  Illumination also extended it’s search for marquee names for all of the new characters too.  Brie Larson, who is a Nintendo fan girl in real life, does make for a good choice as Rosalina.  She brings a warmth to the character that is welcome.  The only problem is that she isn’t in that much of the movie, acting mostly as a human McGuffin to motivate the plot and not much else.  Perhaps the best new addition to the cast is Glen Powell as Fox McCloud, aka Star Fox.  If his presence here is a slick way to back door pilot a Star Fox movie spin-off I wouldn’t be upset because I thought Powell did a great job embodying the character, tapping a little into his Top Gun: Maverick (2022) experience.  Benny Safdie is a little surprising as Bowser Jr., because he’s trying to put on a cartoonish, juvenile style voice to play the part and it’s not what you’d expect from an actor like him.  He does alright, though I would’ve liked to have heard a bit more menace in his performance.  But of all the new cast in this movie, none is more baffling than Donald Glover playing Yoshi.  You would never in a million years know that Childish Gambino was playing Yoshi in this movie unless you saw his name in the credits.  He’s just doing an impression of the high pitched Yoshi voice that we all know from the games and that’s it.  There’s no trace of Glover’s actual voice at all in the film.  It sounds fine, but I have to ask, why?  It just read to me that Illumination was just looking for another celebrity name they could throw on the marquee, but I worry that it sends a bad precedent because chasing after celebrity names takes away chances for professional voice actors to have the opportunity to have their name on a big movie like this.

Frustration is honestly the feeling I get when I come away from these Illumination Mario movies.  They have the potential to be really good and do justice to the source material that they are based on.  But Illumination seems to be an animation studio built more around commerce than creativity.  Their movies are meant to be easily digestible by the broadest audience possible, and they offer nothing more than than.  But, the Super Mario games deserve so much more than that.  Nintendo’s Game studio has always given Mario and his franchise the greatest amount of care, because he is the face of their company.  That’s why the Mario games always represent innovation in the gaming community, because they are the ones where Nintendo tests out all of their newest game mechanics.  They know that Mario games sell well, and that’s why they trust their little plumber friend to be the best showcase for all the new innovations.  The Mario Galaxy games, with their breakthrough gravity mechanics, was an especially great demonstration of Mario’s ability to change the direction of gaming in general.  Mario is a character that deserves to have movies that reflect that sense of innovation.  But Illumination never makes anything that innovates in the animation industry, unlike it’s contemporaries like Disney, Pixar or Sony.  They just deliver us the movie equivalent of empty calories.  Sure, the movies look nice thanks to a talented team of animators, but that’s all the movies offer.  All I can say is thank God they are not giving this treatment to The Legend of Zelda, which is one of my favorite video game franchises.  That is getting the live action treatment, which it honestly needed to do the games justice.  There’s nothing wrong with doing an animated version of Mario Bros., but I feel like an animation studio such as Illumination, which has some low standards when it comes to quality of story, is holding the Mario franchise back.  Imagine Mario with this kind of animation, but backed up with the strength of story like what we saw with The Lego Movie.  Sadly, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie does nothing to improve on the last film, and may in fact have even dropped the ball even more.  But, of course nothing I say will make much of dent on what will likely be a huge box office win for both Illumination and Nintendo.  If what you want is a nice easy to digest movie based on the Mario Bros. games, you may end up getting what you wanted in this movie.  But for me, I would’ve rather spent my time playing the video games again.

Rating: 5/10