In The Super Mario Bros Movie, Brooklyn plumbers Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his younger brother, Luigi (Charlie Day), fall down a mysterious portal and wind up separated inside a magical world. Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, which is ruled by Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), who’s strategizing how to prevent her land from being conquered by the nefarious Bowser (Jack Black). When Mario realizes that Luigi has likely been taken prisoner by Bowser, he and Peach team up to save his brother and her people.

ids will probably love this scattershot dash through Nintendo’s most popular properties. But then kids, rarely the most discerning audience members at the best of times, will routinely mistake familiarity for fun – something that this lazy picture exploits extensively. Musical motifs from beloved games, minor characters, nods to the Mario legacy: all were greeted with shrieks of excitable recognition at the screening I attended. The Super Mario Bros Movie is a frantic Easter egg hunt of a film that does the bare minimum to please its loyal existing fanbase. Those less enthralled by the antics of the moustachioed Italian plumber will wonder which of Donkey Kong’s weaponised barrels this joyless, noisy mess was scraped from.