Everyone has probably played the iconic Super Mario video game at some point in their lives. So when The Super Mario Bros movie reboot was announced, to say that audiences were thrilled would be an understatement. The movie is based on the best-selling Nintendo video game franchise. And the iconic video game character has been voiced by Chris Pratt.
The animated film hit theatres on the 5th of April. Despite the initial buzz surrounding it, the movie has received mixed reviews from critics.
Reportedly, on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, The Super Mario Bros movie has a critics’ score of just 54 percent positive, marking it as “Rotten”. In stark contrast, the audience score (voted by non-professional critics) is a “Fresh 96 percent” positive.
Elon Musk Slams Critics
The divisive CEO of Twitter responded to a tweet recently, lashing out at critics for their negative reviews on The Super Mario Bros. He was not a fan of the “disconnected” comments of the critics and didn’t care for their reviews.
Wow, the critics are so disconnected from reality!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 6, 2023
Some people have been more skeptical of the apparent disconnect between audiences and critics, considering the target audience for the film was meant to be younger kids, and the critics may not see it from the same perspective.
“This is exactly how these numbers should look given that the movie’s audience is children and most professional critics are adults,”
Coincidentally, Elon Musk previously appeared as a Mario character on a Saturday Night Live skit back in 2021. The eccentric entrepreneur played Wario, Mario’s infamous yellow nemesis.
The sketch itself was a major powerplay, and it did exactly what it was designed for, get everyone talking about Elon Musk and SNL. The original tweet mentions that experts have an issue with Chris Pratt, but turns out they’re not the only ones.
Ever since the trailer for the film dropped, hardcore Nintendo fans have been concerned about mostly one thing, Chris Pratt. More specifically, his voice acting. Pratt’s voice and accent are far from the original Italian accented lines like “It’s-a me, Mario!” and “Let’s-a go!” everyone knows and loves from Nintendo’s deep bench of Super Mario games. But the Guardians of The Galaxy actor was positive that their concerns would vanish once they watched the highly anticipated film.
“There were certainly discussions of how best to voice the character,” Pratt told Yahoo Entertainment. “We tried a lot of different things and ultimately settled on the voice that you hear when you watch the movie. I’m really happy with it, and I think people are gonna really enjoy it.”
Super Mario Bros Box Office Collection Unaffected by Bad Reviews
Universal’s release of The Super Mario Bros is mushrooming to unexpected heights. The animated film is looking at a $195 million five-day debut, outperforming all projections with ease. 
Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) in Super Mario Bros.
Despite the unflattering reviews from critics, the film has had a booming debut. The animated film has collected a whopping running domestic total of $113 million within three days of release. In its first weekend, Super Mario Bros had a box office projection of $130-$140 million.
Nobody, not even Universal expected the film to collect close to $200 million in such a short span. If the trajectory is maintained, Super Mario will deliver one of the biggest-ever openings for an animated film, and the second-biggest five-day debut of all time behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($200 million).
Super Mario Bros is now out in theatres.
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