The Super Mario Bros. Movie made me appreciate Wreck-It Ralph more than ever

polygon.com:

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the animated comedy starring on the iconic mustachioed platform-hopping plumbers, has been a big hit. Boasting an all-star voice cast consisting of Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, and more, the first adaptation of Nintendo’s beloved video game franchise in three decades grossed more than $377 million globally during its opening weekend.

Those are some big numbers, but not everyone is hot on Mario and Luigi’s latest cinematic adventure. As my colleague Joshua Rivera described in his review,The Super Mario Bros. Movie is “overwhelmingly gorgeous and painstakingly faithful [to Nintendo’s worlds and characters]” but has “frustratingly brief moments of idiosyncrasy that would arguably make [for] a more memorable film.” Polygon’s deputy games editor Maddy Myers had her own take: Namely, it’s an uncomplicated, breezy, risk-free movie — which makes it feel boring compared to the disastrous but memorable 1993 live-action cult classic starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi.

Everyone and the Koopa Troop is weighing in with their two cents on the film, so I figured, what the hell, I might as well wade into the Discourse colosseum with my take: The Super Mario Bros. Movie is fine. Aggressively fine. It’s the sort of low-calorie, high-fructose-corn-syrup-infused entertainment you’d expect from a film tailor-made to appeal to children and “children of all ages.” Apart from a handful of notable scenes (the Rainbow Road sequence, Mario and Luigi’s Kamen Rider/Neon Genesis Evangelion-style combo kick in the finale), it’s the type of animated comedy that will dissipate from your mind the moment you walk out of the theater.

But at several points during the film, I felt