The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic split Mario and Luigi apart minutes after the opening and keep them apart until the finale. Across 93 minutes Mario travels alone while Luigi waits in a cage. The swap was deliberate. The directors traded Princess Peach’s and Luigi’s positions from the games, putting Luigi in the captive role, because the familiar rescue arrangement struck them as too straightforward. Underneath, though, it is still a level select. The Mushroom Kingdom, the Kong arena and Rainbow Road each get one sequence and one joke, then hand the turn along. The only stretch with a voice of its own is Bowser at the piano. Jack Black co-wrote “Peaches” with the directors, and the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to number 56. Brian Tyler worked with Koji Kondo, composer of the games, to move familiar themes into an orchestra. Chris Pratt’s first Italian accent was dropped for sounding too close to Tony Soprano, leaving a Mario with almost no accent at all. It took 1.36 billion dollars worldwide, the first video game adaptation past a billion. Go in if a parade of recognisable images counts as entertainment on its own. Stay away if you want Luigi inside the story, or a sequence played to its end.