The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie is absolutely a Nintendo game brought to dazzling life. It's got the characters, world, and adventurous spirit right on the money. But those expecting something akin to The LEGO Movie might be left a bit cold.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie falls short of being solidly fun. There's a woeful lack of originality in the storytelling, and too much of this movie feels like a nakedly commercial grasp for nostalgia-inducing cash. In the end, it feels like one long commercial.

The latest animated blockbuster from Illumination is their most soulless to date, a film that feels like ChatGPT produced it after data and imagery from the games were fed into a computer. Instead, I got a movie that's as hollow as a trailer, something that willfully avoids anything creative or ambitious.