Chris Pratt’s baffling Mario movie voice deserves a line-by-line analysis
Would a Mario by any other accent sound as wahoo? We’re about to find out, now that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is out and Chris Pratt’s performance as the jumping red-hatted plumber is being put to the test.
His voice acting has been the source of much concern and consternation since the first trailer dropped. That initial audio reveal showed off vocal choices that were vaguely Italian at best, and as the world waited for the movie, fans didn’t know what to think. Did we really want Chris Pratt doing a 90-minute House of Gucci bit? Should Mario even talk?
Throughout it all, Chris Pratt made the rounds peddling his agenda on the promotional tour, promising that once people just see the movie, they’ll hear what he’s going for. After all, as the man has said, he’s been playing Mario games for 30 years — he knows what an Italian plumber from Brooklyn transported to the Mushroom Kingdom in his infancy by a stork sounds like.
And yet, and yet, and yet! Folks, I am here to tell you that I have seen The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and almost all I could think about was what was going on with Chris Pratt’s voice. It consumed me, like my own mental warp pipe, every time this little plumber-man opened his mouth. It’s hard to say whether it’d be easier if Pratt had just not committed to any purposeful vocal choices at all. Instead, his Mario exists in a strange middle zone, where Mario is unevenly seasoned with… some sort of accent. It’s Mario by way of Brooklyn by way of turning the volume dial down, but smashing it back up for the odd Easter egg.
In a way, Pratt wasn’t kidding when he called this voice “unlike anything you’ve heard.” In another very real way, I will be thinking about my aural journey through Super Mario Bros.’
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