The Mario movie trailer is as cursed as we hoped

Nintendo shared the first trailer for the anticipated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” an animated adventure featuring some deeply meme-worthy casting. With Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser, fans were excited to see just how unhinged this film would be. More than 600,000 viewers tuned into the premiere on Nintendo of America’s YouTube Channel, and the trailer was concurrently streamed at New York Comic Con.

Though the trailer was a bit short, it didn’t disappoint. We finally got to hear Chris Pratt’s voice come out of Mario’s animated form, and it was delightfully bizarre. Plus, Keegan-Michael Key is already killing it as Toad, admonishing Mario for mistaking him for a mushroom. Toad with an attitude? Hell yeah.

The trailer opens with Bowser back on his bullshit, trying to steal our stars like we’re playing “Mario Party.” The Koopa Troopas — who are quite literally troops, true to their name — follow Bowser to a snowy castle, where he demands that they open the gates. Some penguins try to throw snowballs at him to defend their domain, but their efforts are futile.

So far, Black seems to have seriously committed to his role as the terrifying Mario villain.

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to learn how to breathe fire?” Black deadpanned in a pre-recorded video, which played alongside the trailer. “I had to learn from Gene Simmons of Kiss!”

To quote our own Greg Kumparak, “Bowser looks terrifying! Mario is Chris Pratt.”

He is right. We are introduced to Mario as he plops out of a warp pipe into a mushroom-filled fantasy land, but he lands unceremoniously alone in the field. So far, Chris Pratt’s Mario seems more like Andy Dwyer than Star-Lord, and we love that for him.

“It’s been a life-long dream of mine to become Mario,” Pratt said before the trailer aired. He recalls spending hours of his life stomping Koopas in the original Mario arcade game at his local laundromat.

Story continues

We didn’t get to see other performances from the star-studded cast, including Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi and former TechCrunch Disrupt speaker Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. Perhaps we will see them in trailer two!

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is slated to premiere on April 7, 2023.