Earlier at New York Comic-Con, Nintendo revealed the first trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie. The film, which is being created as a joint effort between Nintendo and Illumination, was revealed as part of a special Nintendo Direct that aired online and for those physically in attendance in New York.
The trailer, which should be embedded below, gives us a look at Bowser, some cute but determined penguin creatures, Toad, and Mario. The reception to Jack Black's voicework for Bowser has been almost unanimously positive. The reception to Chris Pratt's Mario has been uh... Let's just put it this way: Chris Pratt sucks as the voice of Mario. It's literally just Chris Pratt being Chris Pratt and speaking exactly as Chris Pratt speaks.
We all basically expected one of two outcomes when it was announced that Pratt was going to voice Mario in this film. It was either going to be an extremely stereotypical, and borderline offensive, Italian accent or it was going to be exactly what we got: Chris Pratt's normal speaking voice.
In June, Pratt said that he "worked really closely with the directors(...) and landed on something that I'm really proud of and can't wait for people to see and hear." He continued on to say that his work would be "unlike anything you've ever heard in the Mario world before."
And he's right! We have never before heard Chris Pratt in anything Mario related before. Maybe it's best if we never hear his voice work again in anything Mario related after this.
As for the rest of the trailer that wasn't Chris Pratt, it looked and sounded really great! The animation work looks fantastic and the voicework for the other characters seems quite good. Admittedly, there are a lot of other characters we haven't yet seen nor heard yet, so it's entirely possible that Pratt isn't the worst part of the film.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie will hit theaters on April 7, 2023.
