HOLD UP! The Super Mario Movie Looks AMAZING! BUT... 

I think the reason Jack Black works so well is cause when he feels passionate about a film he goes above and beyond to give it his all

I love how ridiculously hard the trailer went in the beginning.

Jack Black sounds good because Jack Black IS actually a voice actor, people don't give him enough credit for it but he's been in several different games and animated films before. He may have started as a cameo voice early on in his VA career, but he's been around man.

I'm stoked for Jack Black's bowser, honestly. He's honestly such a great, versatile actor (both for VA and regular acting) and I'm absolutely certain he can give us that sarcastic, sinister, and witty dialogue that Bowser has had throughout the games. I'm certain we'll get some great lines from him.

We seriously live in a timeline where a *video game movie* made by *Illumination* with a bunch of *celebrity voice actors* looks amazing!

I appreciate you acknowledging Chris Pratt's skill in the LEGO movie. His performance as Emmett was so charming and it's actually the first thing I ever saw him in. He also did a good job in Onward. But you're also right in that he was probably miscast as Mario. I guess we'll just have to see.

Jack black can literally never disappoint on whoever he is playing. It’s like he brings new life to the character and so far I can tell his interpretation of bowser is gonna be a lot of fun.

I heard someone say that Jack Black and Mark Hamill are not celebrity actors, they’re character actors whose skill made them celebrities, and I think that makes a lot of sense. There are a ton of A-listers that are just celebrity actors and their main purpose in a movie is to be a celebrity first, and an actor second. Jack Black and Mark Hamill are actors first, celebrities second, and I love that

When it comes to voice acting and casting, I do think Hollywood should mix it up more. Like it doesn't have to be all celebrities and all VA's, you can have both. They did that with Sonic and it worked flawlessly with both Sonic and Knuckles being voiced by well-known celebrity actors, and Tails keeping his original VA with Colleen. It was a beautiful blend. I also think Hollywood should credit the VA's more in the marketing alongside the celebrities while still allowing the celebrities to market said film as well. All I'm saying is to have a balance. Let everyone have their time in the sun, because everyone is so talented.

I'm a voice actor in Spain and there is always controversy when they get celebrities for voice acting roles. It's pretty common to have the first trailer voice acted by professionals, then the next one have the celebrities on. Luckily, audiences and animation fans have started to grow tired and when the Spanish dubbed trailer got released, most comments went "KEEP THIS VOICE ACTING, IT'S PERFECT!". And this is from someone who worked with Chris Pratt's Spanish voice actor.

The irony here is that Illumination was our biggest worry, but now Mario's voice is our biggest worry.

The saddest part to me is that voice actors aren't as popular only because of how good they are at it. If you hear a voice and immediately think of a character and not a person, it's a good voice actor. That's because voice acting is literally the ability to do a large range of voices in so many different ways. Chris Pratt voice acting as Mario is the equivalent of Dwayne Johnson acted as a teenage nerd. It just won't work. The only voice actor I can really tell who it is in several different roles is Tom Kenny, and that's the rare case where a voice actor has such a unique voice that it works anywhere. Chris Pratt? Not so much.

TBH, Jack Black voicing Bowser is extremely impressive. Perhaps one day, voice actors won't be treated like second-class; we want a story instead of marketing A-list celebrities (don't get me wrong some A-list celebrities can voice act). Look what happen to original voice actors from Hazbin Hotel; social media went uproar about voice actors are not voicing the characters the show.

I was so happy to hear Jack Black as Bowser. He just throws himself 100% into any role. Martinet really should have been Mario. Everyone seems to forget he's not just the voice of Mario. He's a great VA and is always a delight to hear. He'd 100% have been able to pull out a suitable voice for the movie.

This makes me realize how lucky we were to get the voice actors from Bob's Burgers to do the movie. They didn't just replace them with big-name actors, they got the people from the show.

Mario’s Chris Pratt impression is really accurate

This is definitely Illumination’s best looking movie yet, animators put their blood, sweat and tears into it. And something tells me Jack Black is totally gonna outshine Chris Pratt in the voice acting department

Fun fact about your suggestion about how Nintendo/ Miamoto are giving "input" on this film, In Wreck it Ralph, They MADE the crew reanimate Bowser because 1. Bowser would be drinking tea at the meeting ( I think it was originally coffee) and 2. Bowser would hold his cup a certain way, so there's hope for this movie

You should have mentioned Michael Keegan. Him as toad was actually well done from what we heard, perfectly scratchy but not too annoying. Also has some charm to it. I like it!

Honestly to those asking if one would really want Charles Martinet to do his Mario voice for a whole movie. Mr. Martinet is an experienced voice actor, he just starred in the latest Dragon Ball movie. He could simply adjust his Mario voice to fit a feature length movie since he’d be doing full on dialogue as opposed to a couple voice clips. Other than that, it looks good. I’m hoping that when we hear more of Pratt’s Mario that he isn’t just doing his usual voices. Also imagine an alternate reality where everything’s the same but Mario, Peach, DK, and Cranky Kong are voiced by Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Patrick Seitz, and Mark Hamill respectively (The voices of Roy Mustang, Maka Albarn, Dio, and The Joker respectively)

Right off the bat, I can tell this movie will be an origin story. It even looks like they’re taking elements from the Super Mario show. Hell, Mario even says “what is this place” when he first enters the Mushroom Kingdom, indicating that this is the first time he’s seeing all this.

This film seems to be an origin story for the Mario Bros. since Mario doesn't know where he is. In Mario's second line you can hear a Brooklyn accent, so it seems like they're returning to source material that predates Charles Martinet giving Mario an Italian accent. The original story is that the Mario Bros. are Italian-American construction workers-turned-plumbers who live in Brooklyn but get isekai'd (usually via a sewer pipe) to the Mushroom kingdom. Before Charles Martinet brought his voice to the games, the Mario Bros. were depicted as having Brooklyn accents.

I think it is okay to use famous actors on an original story. With the Lego movie, even though it’s adapting legos, it was still a blank canvas since there are no existing characters. However, when you are adapting an already established character, people expect them to sound a certain way and when they don’t meet that expectation, it takes you out of the story.

Keegan Michael Key’s Toad is phenomenal. He got that Toad anxiety down pat, I felt that ‘don’t touch that you’ll die!’

I had the same thoughts about Jack when watching the trailer. Bowser's first line, I was like : "That's Jack Black? It doesn't sound like him." Then when he said "Now who's going to stop me?", specifically the way he said it, I was like: "Oh, now I hear him."

Just wanna throw this out there: I think I speak for all Splatoon fans when I say a Splatoon anime would be INCREDIBLE. The world building in Splatoon is *so* slept on, and a slice-of-life series about an inkling or octoling in splatsville would be just perfect.

Charles Martinet has a HUGE range. He can do Mario, Luigi, Wario AND Waluigi. Chris Pratt was able to learn to do a Brooklyn accent for this movie. Charles absolutely could have learned to change his voice to sound good when we have to listen to him for a whole movie.

The trailer looked so good, I'm so hyped for this movie. I don't think Chris Pratt was bad, it's just that he's not cut out to play Mario, they should've gotten someone else. I'd also love to one day make a Legend of Zelda movie, if Nintendo will allow it.

Charles Martinet did a voice in the dub of the most recent Dragon Ball movie and he did a fantastic job, he can do more than the usual bing-bing-wahoo Mario.

Charles Martinete also did the voice of parthonax in Skyrim, so it also shows that he could do Bowser and other characters simply because he’s an actual voice actor and not a celebrity. My heart hurts for the modern movie industry casting, because I myself have been trying to get voice acting jobs. But by the looks of things, I’ll never get passed indi games

And Keegan’s voice for toad is super underrated. I was surprise to hear toads voice and it being enjoyable

Friend and I have a theory that Mario's voice will change during the movie. During the course of the film his voice starts to change to the well known voice for Mario. Also, Jack Black is an amazing human. He's great at everything he's done. He's also the protagonist of Brutal Legends if anyone's played that. Some of my favorite people are voice actors. Voice actors deserve the world for making our childhoods better, and honestly they kind of help our world run. They do commercials, news reels, cartoons, movie trailers, video games, radio, the works. It's hard to witness some of the crap they go through, where you have the Voice Actors do an absolutely stunning job, but they get overlooked or replaced. Friend is worried about one of my favorite VAs because he just got let go from one of the anime he's in because he's unionized. Sorry, voice actors are people I hold very dear to me because they've saved me from very dark places. And they deserve more respect than what they've been given in the past.

Calling it now: if Wario shows up in the movie, it's going to be in the stinger. And who is going to voice him? Charles Martinet. Because while Charles' Mario voice doesn't lend itself well to an extended role like in a movie, Wario being a cartoon villain/antagonist makes his voice work PERFECTLY.

Let's not go crazy here. We've seen one short teaser. Credit to Jack Black, he's actually trying. He's made a voice and personality for Bowser instead of just playing himself, and it fits pretty well. The movie looks much better thsn expected, but I credit that to Nintendo. Illumination wouldn't put this much effort into anything by their own choice. Nintendo is psychotically controlling of their IPs, so I imagine they're the ones forcing Illumination to actually try. One good character and competent visuals is enough to trick kids into seeing the movie with a carefully made trailer, that doesn't mean the movie will be good.

Miyamoto has stated that this movie would be FULLY animated! So, I’m sure in the real world, everything would still be animated

From the latest trailer, now I wanna see a game where you play as a Princess Peach who's proficient in poleaxes.

For me personally. I think the animation and design is an absolute 10 out of 10. And I'll admit, when I heard they were doing an all-star cast for the voices, I was a bit dubious... But Kevin Michael Richardson? Blew it out of the water as Kamek. Jack Black gives Bowser the deep gravitas you'd expect from the King of the Koopas. And Keegan-Michael Key does wonders to infer the classic 'raspy squeal' of Toad's voice without making it ear grating. Chris Pratt as Mario though, is just Chris Pratt with a hint, a smidge, and very, very, VERY light touch of an Italian inflection. You're right in that it does sound like Linda Belcher (or her upbeat dad). If they didn't want to go with the original VA (like how they did with the Sonic movie) but not be culturally insensitive, why not get an actual Italian actor? I've seen some suggestions for Robert De Niro and Danny DeVito (though like you say, DeVito is more of a Wario or Waluigi).

Small correction: that photo of "Matthew Fogel" is actually Fred Armisen, who is playing Cranky Kong

3:41 this is definitely my favorite scene so far just because of the PURE JACK BLACK in bowser's expression. i love it.

You didn't mention Key, who I 100% thought was just going to use his own voice for Toad and do a half assed job. Instead he clearly put in a lot of work and effort and did a shockingly good job.

Voice Over is still being seen as "Not real acting" by the big insdustry people, but with the increase in popularity of animation and gaming it's getting better, slowly but steadily.

Jack Black was BORN to play the Koopa King! I am hoping that when we get more trailers for the movie we can hear more of Chris Pratt's Mario.

Jack Black has done some really good voice acting work. I loved him in Psychonauts 2, and he is the perfect guy for Bowser. I remember seeing that casting decision and going 'yo are we getting Super Star Saga Bowser? Bet'.

Based on the trailer alone, I and many others have high hopes that this movie will be for Illumination what Into The Spiderverse was for Sony! That being said though, we can also collectively agree that Chris Pratt's voice as mario is certainly gonna be…. interesting, regardless of whether or not the movie is ultimately good, which I'm hopeful that it will be!

Jack Black is just talented at everything. Acting, Voice Acting, a badass singer, and just charming and hilarious. Honestly, I'll be seeing it FOR Jack Black. 🥰

I was looking into Charles (Mario's voice actor) the other day. Did you know he was in Skyrim as one of the dragons? The guy has a great vocal range. He definitely could have done something with Mario to find a voice that works.

I keep hearing the argument that Charles Martinet has only done Mario in the games, thus hearing him in a full film might be weird. Martinet is an experienced VA who has been doing full films for a while. He was the main villain in this years Dragonball Super: Super Hero film as Magenta, and he was fantastic. I could not hear a hint of Mario in his voice, he is an incredible actor with great range and its baffling that he wasn't given the full role for this film

Totally with you on this. I was SO pleasantly surprised by how awesome the animation is, ESPECIALLY for Illumination

I assume it's an origin story. My main reason is the reveal of Foreman Spike from the old game Wrecking Crew being in the movie. The voice actor for him said that Spike is Mario and Luigi's boss. So I'm guessing we'll see the two working at a construction site, then something will happen which will pull them into the Mushroom Kingdom. And we get an origin story, while the ancient character of Foreman Spike becomes relevant again to a new audience.

Dude, you voiced my greatest fear! "IRL Chris Pratt wearing a fake moustache and some overalls gets isekai'd to the Mushroom Kingdom" might be the worst, most terrifying idea they could possibly have for this thing, lol.

I wish they kept Marios Italian accent, cos it’s part of his history.. Mario was inspired by the Italian guy with heavy accent after all)) and also I’m really REALLY happy they didn’t make toad sound the way he does in the game.. just slightly similar)))

I think this the best illumination has ever physically looked to be completely honest, like the animation was good but this is like outstanding by their standards

Idk why people are afraid of "Mario voice" for an entire movie, Mickey mouse, Goofy and Donald talk funny too and it worked for the movies, it's just charming to me

Another reason i think Jack Black is gonna kill this role is because he's an actual full-fledged gamer, with a yt channel and everything (jablinsky games). He's passionate about this industry, and I can already hear how much fun he's having from just the one clip

I can't WAIT to see Charlie Day as Luigi! I honestly found out about him after he got this role, and I haven't checked out much of his stuff (the Pepe Silvia meme is basically the only thing I've seen), but there's _something_ about his acting... I've seen a bunch of fan animations made to show how he would feel like on Luigi, and they were all so GOOD

I'm just so sad they didn't do Mario's catchphrase "Let's-a GOOOO" and did "Mushroom Kingdom, here we cooome." Like...IT WAS RIGHT THERE

The "Don't touch that, you'll die!" line made me remember we were watching an Illumination movie.

Ever since the voice actors were revealed, i was confident that Jack Black and Charlie Day would be good as their roles. I think im gonna like Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong, imagining DK with his laugh is hilarious to me

Jack Black surprisingly is a killer voice actor, I was surprised to see in in Psychonaughts 2 as PsiKing/Helmet. When I first saw the casting list for the Mario movie I was 50/50 on some of the calls, but I knew Jack would be a killer bowser

You're right about Voice artists being done dirty - it's happened in video games too like how Kojima replaced David Hayter with Kieffer Sutherland as Snake. He still kept the Japanese voice artist though!

Mario is very energetic and enthusiastic. I would love to hear that in his voice, but I’m keeping my expectations low. I am excited to see this movie and I really hope it leads to more Nintendo properties getting films - like a Legend of Zelda show or movie.

While I understand why people didn’t like Mario’s voice, it’s still too early for me to say. I mean, Bowser had the most screen time on the trailer (and oh boy I will never complain about it!), and Mario had only two lines. The first one was okay, but the “here we come” didn’t feel good. I hope it’s just a take for the trailer and not from the movie itself.

05:02 I felt this statement in my SOUL! I'm over Hollywood casting trending Celebs for the sake of selling seats! Soooooooo many talented individuals with the vocals that can deliver organic acting and yet they're totally overlooked! 😭🎙

I would love a Luigi’s Mansion movie. So if the Mario Movie does really well, then I hope that could happen in the future. I think the trailer looked promising and I’m excited to see how it goes :D

When i heard that Myamotto was involved in production i wasnt so worried about this movie, i think it will be at least okay (witch considering its illumination is like doing a banger movie) Detective Pikachu and the movie Sonic redesign showed that having someone from the original team on the games is a good thing for the adaptation, so this is not the same case as The Lorax or The Grinch when Dr. Seuss was dead and no one associated with him could get involved in the movies productions

1:40 It's more of an issue that the ones that were done well _aren't_ adaptations, they're original stories (this one looks no different). Even Detective Pikachu, which follows similar story beats, is an adaptation in only the loosest of senses. Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva was also a completely original work that's canon to the main series that was basically just a Layton game told through nothing but the cutscenes which use the same style of pure 2D animation.

Old Pixar had some great A-List voice actors, but I think it’s important to pick the right person instead of whoever is currently trending. Like, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen make Toy Story. I don’t think Pixar could re-cast either of those guys and make it work. Kinda same thoughts for Billy Crystal and John Goodman for Monsters Inc.

For the most part, this teaser sold me on this upcoming Mario film. Chris Pratt's voice for the Italian Plumber doesn't quite fit from what what was shown here, but I'll keep my fingers crossed until I see the movie itself. Speaking of voice overs, your rant on the whole 'celebrity voices vs primary voice actors' scenario is on point. I get that companies want to use A-List celebrities to bring in the big bucks, and yes there are plenty that deliver great performances (i.e. Robin Williams, Mark Hamill, Keith David, J.K. Simmons). But putting voice actors in the back burner for theatrical movies is a terrible thing, especially when they provide diverse voices for different characters, including popular animated films (i.e. Frank Welker in Aladdin, Jim Cummings in various Disney films).

I absolutely love how expressive everything is. Bowser looks so freakin good

I heard from someone that the reason they made Chris Pratt Mario was because they wanted to go with more of a New York accent than an Italian one because they were basing it more of the old Super Mario show. Then again, there are plenty of other voice actors that would've been much better for that lol.

Most of the movie literally seems it'll be an Isekai where Mario gets transported from his home city as a builder/plumber into the Mushroom Kingdom. Spike the Foreman (an obscure Mario character who used to be the boss of Mario in VERY old game called "Wrecking Crew") has a voice acted role in this movie, so this could very well take place in Brooklyn or New Donk City and would explain Mario's voice and "Brooklyn accent" just like the Super Mario Bros Super Show and the old Mario movie.

jack black is a master of many arts, he is an amazing nutjob and can voice act on such a level that any role can be filled and he'll be able to carry that piece of media, regardless of how bad it is

All I hope and pray for is that Charles's cameo role isn't some super-fan cosplaying as Mario at the end saying the iconic "it's a-me, Mario!" to which Chris Pratt Mario just awkwardly laughs before stating "I don't sound like THAT, do I?"

I still cannot believe it took them 30 years to make a Good Animated Super Mario Bros movie since the last one was live action that came out in 1993 with Bob hoskins especially after that one left on a cliffhanger.

Charles Martinet used to make these cute little videos with Luigi, Mario, etc. toys going around commenting on nature and stuff. And he did it in a much more 'grounded' way, since it was full sentences and conversations. He's already shown he can absolutely do it.

I have high hopes for this because it seems like Nintendo isn't going to let this be bad. Even Toad had his signature screechy voice.

Now I want a realistic mario with the cast of the movie as the cast for the game.

i reckon Chris's voice will be adjusted in the final movie, theres a very slight accent in the trailer, i think they may have him put on more of an accent, or he may even be currently re-recording the lines and they just used the lines they had recorded at the time

Charles Martinet: *Says he likes Chris Pratt's take on Mario.* Literally the entire internet: I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.

chris pratt as mario is definitely gonna be…. interesting

1:18 Miyamoto did say, "A delayed game is eventually good. A rushed game is forever bad."

Jack Black as Bowser joining Jim Carrey as Eggman in the pantheon of comedy actors doing great video game villains

I didn't think of casting Danny as Wario and now I want this to happen

Agree. Michael Bay brought in the original voice actor for Optimus Prime for the transformer movies and didn't have some big name star for him cause Optimus had an iconic voice that can't be replaced.

I just kinda wish we could get more Mario lines to actually see if Chris’s voice did get better…

This looks kinda good. Sonic movies, Detective Pikachu, Arcane, Edgerunners, and now Mario (if it turns out good), recent adaptations of games are starting to get better and I love it!

With Sonic, Castlevania, and Cyberpunk Edgerunners getting fun and great adaptations (plus NieR:Automata's anime is on the way too) I'm really hoping the Mario movie works out! There's lot of good stories that can be told with a video game's story/setting. It's definitely hard to translate games into a different medium, but not impossible! I really hope we get more good ones in the future!

I agree with mostly your same points too. Great Visuals, love for Jack Black, Chris Pratt needs to try more. My one thing I'd like to point out is even though Robin WIlliams made it more noticable of celebrity actors being casted for voice acting roles he wasn't the first. This practice has been done since the begining of animated feature films. For Disney's 1940 Pinocchio is actually marked with using a large cast of "celebrity voices" with Cliff Edwards as Jimmy Cricket who was a popular singer, Dickie Jones the child actor for Pinocchio, and even Mel Blanc the legendary voice actor was casted although technically every line was cut from Gideon the Cat except for a hiccup. It's a hard balance where some celebrities understand the assignment and can both promote and elevate an animated movie and then you have the other side where you can tell it's just a paycheck, another job for them to do and not try to be that character their casted in and just use their own voice. I'm still excited to see this movie ^.^

Thank you, BRAZILLIAN VOICE ACTORS for making an italian accent on Brooklyn Chris Pratt.

11:08 Isekai jokes aside, I thought about it and realized that HAS been the modus operandi for Mario stuff. The original Japanese animation, the American show, and even the plot to a lot of the games where Mario is just inexplicably somewhere new (Yoshis Island, SMW, Bowser's Fury) without much explanation beyond 'not where he usually is'.

Honestly, this actually looks very promising, and I don’t think Mario sounds half bad, Chris Pratt sounds like the old 90’s cartoon Mario. I am very excited for this, and from what we can see, it looks like it’s gonna be very good.

How long has it been since Bowser has been portrayed as dangerous as this? Loving that. Well, Chris Pratt's Mario doesn't sound bad, just uncanny when we're accostumed to Charles Martinet doing the high pitched "yahoos". I think, in isolation, movie Mario's more "normal" voice might work better for how the movie seems to be framing the character, as he appears to be an everyman transported to the Mushroom Kingdom.

I don't think we've heard enough of Chris Pratt as Mario for me to make a final judgement. My immediate impression was that I didn't hate it and that's good enough when Jack Black as Bowser was so amazing

People are like "He's only said, like, 2 lines!" Yeah, so did Toad and Kamek, we can still tell that they're doing a good job.

As someone who warched the super mario brothers super show and the adventures of super Mario bros. 3, I would NOT mind if they did the whole "Mario and Luigi were plumbers and got transported to mushroom kingdom and need to save the day/find each other". Also Chriss doesn't sound bad to me as Mario and think he'll be fine. Bowser is who I was worried about but Jack is perfect! Now, Seth Rogan as DK.....now THAT I'm worried about a little bit xD Just a little.

There is usually praise from fandoms when the company gets the voice actors for their characters. I remember the praise given to the first Transformer live-action movie when they brought in Peter Cullen to voice Optimus, and he killed it! On the other end, same film, Micheal Bay didn’t like Frank Welker as Megatron, and got someone else, and hearing Frank Welker delivering the lines was just, “You’re kidding right?”

Personally, I think it's a bit too early to judge Chris Pratt for his voice as Mario. I think to truly determine that he's good to play Mario, we will need an official trailer from them, which should be longer than the teaser. He only spoke two lines in the teaser. So for now, I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Okay I'm really impressed by Jack Black voicing Bowser very impressive as for Chris Pratt for voicing Mario I'll give it a little more time but other than that I love the animation this looks awesome.

When I first heard about this movie, I wanted to give it a chance like I did with ''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers''. And then I saw the trailer and I was blown away. The voice acting is pretty good and the animation is fantastic! I can't wait to see this movie!

Honestly it looks like Chris Pratt is doing a Brooklyn accent to accommodate with the og lore of mario being that he came from brooklyn, and it actually makes sense since im pretty sure the bros’ boss (i think his name is captain spike or sum), so i can live with it. Either way this movie is looking great