Well let me tell ya, the 7 years old film critics who comprised roughly 90% of the AMC Empire’s audience yesterday at 2pm were going wild. I think this movie is gonna do OK commercially.
I genuinely enjoyed the movie until the “training montage”, which happens roughly a third into the movie. From that point, the plot gets very transparent with excuses on how to trigger the next scene or showcase the next easter egg Yoshi egg.
That said, I was impressed how efficiently and ruthlessly they tied the different scenes together, such as making the Kongs the excuse to include the kart sequence in order to keep the movie under 90 minutes, never mind the plot’s coherence.
I also liked the film version of Peach, which I thought was #girlboss but in a very coherent way. The character did not feel as spoon-fed and “designed by committee” as some recent Disney/Pixar attempts. Yet, one small problem with the plot is that neither she nor really anyone seems to go through any kind of character development? I guess Mario improves his social status and his relationship with his father by the end but it’s not like any character is fundamentally different between minute 1 and minute 90. Then again, that’s in line with the IP.
I am more into storyboarding and scene compositionen? than scripting and artistic intent, especially for animated movies, so I did appreciate the composition effort, especially in the Mushroom kingdom. Less impressed by the storyboard (way below something like Toy Story 4) but that “side-scrolling” scene in Brooklyn was pretty cool and probably the most interesting moment of cinema in there.