[EXPRESSO] Super Mario Bros The Movie (2023) | Fungine Fun

So the new Super Mario Bros movie, the new animated one, is here, and i gotta say i’m pleasantly surprised, since it’s still handled by Illumination, which is… a prolific studio, let’s put it like that.

The plot is what about you’d expect and combines elements from both the previous film iterations of the Mario franchise, so you have Mario and Luigi as unsuccessful plumbers in Brooklyn that one day, while trying to fix a flood, get transported into the Mushroom Kingdom, where Princess Peach is preparing a plan to fight Bowser, as he got hold of the magical Super Star and is bent on world domination… after he pops the question to Peach, that is.

Yeah, there is the isekai element but the world isn’t the weird Blade Runner-looking dino society of the 1993 live action film, instead the one most audiences remember from the videogames, and i say “the videogames” because basically every popular iteration of Mario is represented, there’s even the karts and the Kongs play a not small role in it, as the movie crams a lot of action, varied setpieces and fuckton of references in every scene, making for a pleasing 90 minutes romp where there’s no downtime nor faffing about random shit to pad out the runtime.

Animation is top notch and the script (which is still very “Illumination”) it’s also a lot funnier than one would wager, so older audiences will get more laughs out of it than expected, instead of groaning their way through most of it.

If i went to see it when i was 12, i would have lost my shit, but even disregarding that, The Super Mario Bros animated film stands as a good kids movie, very fun indeed.

It’s better than the Sonic live-action films, i’d say.

[EXPRESSO] The Bubble (2022) | Comedy Out Of Time

Decided to dip my toes once again into the Netflix new releases, still not much luck.

The Bubble it’s honestly kinda sad as it has a nice idea, being a comedy happening on the set of the new movie in the fictional “Cliff Beasts” B-movie series, completely taking place in the hotel where the cast it’s quarantined in until the movie it’s finished.

The first problem is that The Bubble it’s a satirical comedy that not only loses all its edge as it dwells on the expected themes and almost comes off as hypocritical, poking fun at the movie industry when it was written in a rush in early 2021 in order to make itself relatable to the viewer, goes for a lot of comedy low-hanging fruits, and hopes the excellent cast of comedy actors would suffice.

The other problem is that it feels incredibly dated already and worse, it’s not really that funny, to be blunt.

It has its moments where it works, undeniably, so it’s not a completely laugh-free Netflix affair, and it’s not grating, but the straightforward approach and scattershot nature of the movie as a glorified series of improv sketches doesn’t help, and makes one wonder why the fuck it’s 2 hours long.

The self-awareness about content for content’s sake might have worked if it didn’t feel so depressingly leaning into the audience having compassion for it more than being entertained by, which gets extra depressing and ironic due to how incredibly ancient it feels out of the box.

It’s a shame because there could have been something to it, there’s an effort in making the premise work, but instead it comes off a depressing and kinda desperate comedy that even at peak freshness feel like it was imprisoned in a space capsule alongside Rita Repulsa.

[EXPRESSO] My Name Is Dolemite (2019) | Rat Soup

Time for me to get some use out my Netflix subscription, and this wasn’t gonna screen in Italy anyway.

Shame, because the idea of a biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, the comedian better known to film buffs as his character Dolemite, starring in the eponymous movie and the sequel The Human Tornado (and many others), is a great idea. Especially the first Dolemite is a legendary and beloved piece of blaxploitation cinema, one of the few films where the boom mic is visibly in the movie more than the villain, and with overall quality rivalled only by stuff like The Guy From Harlem.

Telling the story of Rudy Ray Moore, an aspiring 70s Los Angeles comedian that manages to finally find success with his alter-ego/character of Dolemite, a foul mouthed motherfucker in pimp attire, leading to do some comedy records, which brings him some fame and money, all risked to make a movie about the character, in spite of everyone’s advice and good ol’ common sense (like a 70’s black version of Ed Wood, in a way), but Rudy is not gonna have it any other way.

While it’s even better for film buffs that already knew of the story, it’s an amazing portrait of a man struggling to make his name known, to realize it’s dream, and his ambivalent relantioship to the Dolemite persona he doesn’t really identify with after all, but can’t also give up. And isn’t exactly a flattering portrait, but it shouldn’t be, and the script has a perfect balance of goofy and serious, with space for more somber (and not somber) self-reflection, but also to lovingly recreate ridiculous scenes from the first Dolemite movie, with a top notch cast (which includes Snoop Dogg/Lion), especially Eddie Murphy who is killing it as Rudy/Dolemite.

He ain’t lying.

java-icona