GeekDad: ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Power Up Edition: A Review of the 4K Ultra HD

As you may have surmised from our recent contest, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now available to own on Digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. Universal Pictures sent me out a copy of the 4K Ultra HD, which also includes a Blu-ray disc and digital copy.

The 4K Ultra HD disc of The Super Mario Bros. Movie includes not just an Ultra HD copy of the film, but several bonus features. It was viewed on an LG C2 OLED television with sound provided by a  Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus with Dolby Atmos.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

If you’re looking for a full review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie itself, you’re probably better off heading to Rotten Tomatoes or other review sites. While I do have my opinions on the film, I certainly don’t pretend to be a film critic. This article is really meant to be more of a review of the home release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, rather than of the movie itself.

That being said, I enjoyed watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie. While I’m not the biggest Nintendo fan (heresy, I know!), I still have played enough of the Mario games over the years to have an appreciation for the care that went into making this film feel like a Nintendo film. Especially when compared with the dismal 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. The less said of the latter, the better!

What you have with The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a fun, vibrant adventure that highlights the power of family and believing in oneself. It’s also chock full of Nintendo Easter Eggs, such as the Punch-Out Pizzeria, which has pictures of the boxers from the video game Punch-Out on the wall. Inside the pizzeria is the arcade machine Jump Man, an homage to the very first appearance of Mario in a video game, where he was only known as “Jump Man.” That video game was, of course, Donkey Kong.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Power Up Edition – Picture and Sound

A photo taken of a television screen can only convey so much of the true quality of the images, but the 4K Ultra HD brought a wide spectrum of color, as well as showing off a high level of detail in the various textures. Mario’s hat, shirt, overalls, gloves, and boots all look like they’re made from different materials.

There’s also a great use of lighting to convey mood, as you can see when you compare this image of Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom:

With this image of his brother Luigi in The Dark Lands:

The Atmos sound is solid but not overpowering. Dialogue is very clear, and you’ll appreciate how well both the sound and the picture puts you right in the action during a certain sequence involving (spoiler alert) Kart racing.

Most of the time, the audio mix is fairly unassuming. One of the few times you’ll find an exception to that is during the first appearance of Mario baddie Bowser. If you have a subwoofer in your audio setup, you’ll definitely feel his approach early on in the film.

Going right in step with the visuals are all the little sound effects and musical stings that you’ll recognize from various Super Mario games throughout the years. Even if you haven’t played a ton of Nintendo games, it’s hard not to miss some of those ubiquitous sounds.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Power Up Edition – Bonus Features

There’s a pretty robust amount of bonus content included on the disc, especially for a family film. This bonus content is available on all version of the Power Up Edition of the film.

Some of the bonus material is stronger than others. The following are my personal thoughts on the content. Your mileage will vary depending on your personal interests and your age.

Bonus Features

• Getting to Know the Cast. These are behind the scenes interviews with several of the different actors, about how they approached their roles. The interviews are intercut with clips from the film. While I found this a mostly enjoyable watch, it was surprisingly dragged down some by Chris Pratt. While most of the other actors were energetic and engaged when talking about working on The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Chris Pratt seemed very low-energy. Whether it was his intention or not, he didn’t seem from his interview to enjoy working on the film very much. This stands in stark contrast to other actors like Keegan Michael-Key and Jack Black, who can barely seem to contain their joy at being in a Mario Bros. movie.
• Leveling Up: Making The Super Mario Bros. Movie. As a movie buff, this was my favorite part of the bonus content. It’s broken up into 6 parts, and includes interviews not just with the cast, but with the directors, writer, animators, composer, and even Mario creator himself Shigeru Miyamoto. Much like the first bonus feature, these featurettes do suffer a bit when Chris Pratt is onscreen, but the enthusiasm of everyone else being interviewed more than makes up for it. I especially liked the Easter Eggs section, which don’t reveal all of the Nintendo Easter Eggs in the film, but will definitely surprise you with some of the ones that you may have missed when watching the movie.

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie Field Guide. The cast goes in-depth about the various power-ups that appear throughout the film. This one’s probably more useful to show someone who’s unfamiliar with any of the Super Mario games, as it’s fairly obvious watching the movie what kind of effect each of the power-ups has.
• Peaches Lyric Video. Bowser’s serenade to Princess Peach (as sung by Jack Black), but with the lyrics on the screen so you can sing-along. Probably a bit more fun for the kids, though it’s always enjoyable hearing Jack Black sing.
• Leadership Lessons with Anya Taylor-Joy. Peach actress Anya Taylor-Joy discusses the important qualities to have as leader of the Mushroom Kingdom, again backed up with short clips from the film. Definitely geared more towards the kids, but elevated by Anya Taylor-Joy’s obvious (no pun intended) joy at playing Princess Peach.

Overall, there’s a fairly solid mix of bonus features available both for those that are interested in the filmmaking process and for those that just want to see more of their favorite stars. I do want to make it clear that Chris Pratt’s performance of Mario in the film is fantastic. He just seemed oddly low-key during any of his unscripted interviews in the bonus material.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Power Up Edition – Final Thoughts

I enjoyed watching both The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Power Up Edition’s bonus content. It was my first time watching the film, and I definitely found the voice performances and animation to be top-notch. I didn’t watch the Blu-ray or DVD versions so I can’t comment on them, but the visuals on the 4K Ultra HD were spectacular. The audio was also very good, but in a very subtle way. You’re probably not going to be using this disc to show off your sound system.

If you enjoyed the movie in theaters, than picking up the video release will be worth your while, especially if you have kids that will want to rewatch the film multiple times. And if you’re a big Nintendo fan, you’ll probably revisit The Super Mario Bros. Movie more than once to hunt down all of the little Easter Eggs peppered throughout the film.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Power Up Edition is available now to purchase online digitally or at stores like Amazon.

Universal Pictures provided a copy of the movie for evaluation but had no input into the review. As an Amazon associate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases.

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