Why So Blu?

The Super Mario Bros. Movie – Power Up Edition (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)

One of the most gigantic movies of the year, and our only billion dollar earner in 2023, is The Super Mario Bros. Movie. A film that was predestined for success, it reached out to many generations in terms of interest. It still is making money, but Universal was like…lets do home video already. And so, on June 13th, they popped it out with no real notice. I personally didn’t get the 4K press release until it was already on shelves. But, anywho, there are a couple featurettes here and an Atmos track to bring it to live. Order yourself a copy, if you please, by using the paid Amazon Associates link at the end of the review.

.

Film

With help from Princess Peach, Mario gets ready to square off against the all-powerful Bowser to stop his plans from conquering the world.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bit of a lifeless affair with certainly recognizable IP, solid animation and strong voice acting contributions. This certainly works swell for kids, but looking deep into the film, there’s not much it has to offer. People raved and loved this one, so I’m the odd one out here in being detached from it and not really feeling anything strongly toward it. There are little bits I do enjoy but not enough to really soak in or call it average.

Its a movie that is really colorful, poppy, and goofy. Jack Black is tremendous. But there’s a breakneck pace to this where we never settle up or hang out for a minute to develop anything. And we go to places with little to no direction, just that we need to get there. And the films starts nearly at the end of something that Bowser just…sits and waits on? When we realize we are heading into the final act, there’s an odd sense of no stakes, no weight and not really being invested in anything before the final battle. Its really odd and maybe they were just trying to coast off of pre-established attachments to these characters (or voice actors) to carry a lot of the holes here in the story and characters throughout.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie certainly achieved some massive financial success and its a bonafide kids movie classic for generations to come. “Peaches” is the song of our times. I recently heard it remixed at a rave at a convention I was guesting at. So, while I have my critic snobbery turned up here, the movie clearly has done a lot of things right and grasped the attention and love of who it most definitely should have – children. Mine both certainly loved it and were on cloud 9 leaving the theater. So while I’m not so high on it…I realize, I’m the grumpy old man in the minority.

Video

Disclaimer: Screen captures used in the review are from the standard Blu-ray disc, not the 4K UHD Blu-ray disc.

Encoding: HEVC / H.265

Resolution: 4K (2160p)

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Layers: BD-100

Clarity/Detail:  The Super Mario Bros. Movie arrives on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray looking like one of the better animated films on the format that I’ve scene. Its crisp, sharp and features loads of good texture and detail. Colors are quite strong and pop with the nice contrasting black levels.

Depth: Being a CG animated film, it lends itself to some good pushback and three dimensional appeal. Movement is smooth and natural with no issues of motion distortion like a jitter or blur during the rapid action scenes.

Black Levels: Blacks are deep and natural. There’s good shadowing here and tints and such to make for different shades that still hold pattern, textures and fine details. No crushing witnessed.

Color Reproduction: There’s a beautiful color palette respective and accurate to the classic video games’. They are bold and pop with good realism and glow.

Flesh Tones: N/A

Noise/Artifacts: Clean.

Audio

Audio Format(s): English Dolby Atmos, Spanish 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus, French 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish

Dynamics: The Super Mario Bros. Movie has a pretty super Dolby Atmos track. Its well thought out and utilizes the room quite well. There’s some nice depth and good impacting foley work that has the film hit all the right beats and balances the channels and vocals/effects/music well.

Height: From above you get characters of all sorts jumping or floating over the camera as well as debris, shells, cars, fireballs and a lot more to good, varying degrees of volume.

Low Frequency Extension: The subwoofer has good, accurate impact on stomps, bricks crashing, energy bursts and more.

Surround Sound Presentation:  The whole room has some good vision here with things swinging around in all direction with a powerful roll. Environments are crafted well, placing sounds well in the side and rear channels to build ambiance or track offscreen activity.

Dialogue Reproduction: Vocals are clear and crisp.

Extras

The Super Mario Bros. Movie – Power Up Edition comes with the standard Blu-ray edition and a redeemable digital code.

Getting to Know the Cast (4K, 18:26) – This featurette the cast all talk their characters and thoughts on the Nintendo legends.

Leveling Up: Making The Super Mario Bros. Movie (4K, 27:32) – This is a nice little general “Making Of” featurette that covers all the bases, from inception to the final product.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Field Guide (4K, 6:41) – Here is where we play spot the references or talk the details added to bring many peoples’ favorite aspects of the games to the movie.

“Peaches” Lyric Video (4K, 2:28)

Leadership Lessons from Anya Taylor-Joy (4K, 3:07) – Anya shares some things she learned about leading from playing Peach.

Summary

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is new kids classic that brought the most iconic video game character to life on the big screen once again. The 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray release of it comes with a top tier presentation and some fun enough extras. Pick this one up if you like it, and do so at a solid discounted rate.

This is a paid Amazon Associates link