haxxiy said:
It could have definitely used some 10 extra minutes. Except for the beginning, almost none of the scenes are allowed to breathe. This might have been done to optimally fit into children's attention spans and have them return to watch again... |
There's a lot more wrong with the movie than just the pacing imo. The worst offender probably being the countless forced jokes we've seen in hundreds of children's movies before. The kind of humor that'll only get laughs from people under 10. Heck, there were kids at the theater I was in and even then there were moments of just absolute silence, when the movie's clearly waiting for people to laugh. Doesn't help that the movie opens with one of its unfunniest jokes.
Licensed music was an awful choice too, not in the least because they went for the most obvious songs imaginable, instead of choosing what fits the movie they just go the pop culture reference route. And instead only use actual Mario music here and there as little nods and winks.
Outside of that, yeah, it's just not enough character work in there. I suppose you shouldn't expect amazing character development from a Mario movie, just take it for what it is... but then the final act pretends like we've had these huge character arcs, they make a big deal of the scene when Mario sees the ad again (which absolutely does not land), and then suddenly Luigi acts like a hero after spending the whole movie locked in a cage. In the end they just win because they get the super star, which... uhh, why did Bowser want it anyway? He spends the whole movie making a big deal out of it yet doesn't use it once. I was actually surprised to see that it works the same as it does in the games, because if it's just limited-time invincibility, I don't see how that changes anything about Bowser or his army or anything. It's literally pointless.
In the end, people like it because it's got tons of fan service and it's generally accurate to the games. Well, with the exception of everything involving the Kongs, which felt really bizarre, is it just me? I thought both Cranky and Donkey were totally miscast, and the whole kingdom and army and all that was just weird. At least they made the place look like a DK area, but nothing else about them felt DK.
