Jack Black was the only one who knew how to sell The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Jack Black brought unique star power to the Super Mario Bros. press tour. Jacks just wanna have fun. We do too.
Aux Features Mario
Jack Black deserves a lot of credit. Not just for consistently delivering unashamed and joyous comedic performances for about 30 years but for understanding how to sell them. Simply put, there’s no better celebrity pitchman for your movie than Jack Black. His full-throated endorsement of fun, silliness, and play (an especially important component for a video game movie) was the first inkling that maybe this movie would be even a little fun.
Black gets how to pitch this thing to adults while maintaining a gloriously immature desire to not be taken seriously. Take the cast’s visit to The Kelly Clarkson Show, for example, when Black actually showed up in costume, ready to embarrass himself for the sake of his movie. And embarrass himself he did, arriving in an ill-fitting Bowser costume—probably the “Plumber-hating Dinosaur” from Spirit Halloween—to dance around the studio as editors raced to blur his genitals, clearly visible through the cheap fabric around the crotch.
Unfortunately, the rest of the press cycle wasn’t so entertaining. Despite the massive opening weekend tracking, the Super Mario Bros. Movie rollout hasn’t been very fun. In interview after interview, the narrative around the movie was “no, seriously, you’re going to love Chris Pratt’s Mario voice,” which, fine, whatever. The fact that the movie was already doing damage control before the movie was out is not a great sign (We gave the movie a B for those keeping score at home). The fact that audiences really didn’t get to hear the voice in advance leads us to believe that the studio used “what’s he going to sound like” to the film’s benefit. Whether the voice was good or not became The Thing instead of simply having a Mario mascot going around saying, “It’s a-me, Mario! Come and see my movie.”
But, thanks to Black, all was not lost. He understood that, fundamentally, this is a cartoon adaptation of a video game. Heck, even Jerry Seinfeld knew to do this with his one stab at animated glory, arriving at the Cannes Film Festival in a ridiculous bee costume. In a stark contrast to Seth Rogen shitting on the old Mario movie—after saying that bad reviews can make creators sad, no less—Black knows that some carnival barking never hurt anyone and that flop sweat can be funny if you’re not afraid to embarrass yourself. Black, a living meme, is uniquely suited to this role, offering himself up on the altar of Mario.
Part of what makes Jack Black the MVP of Mario is he clearly enjoys and plays video games. In one of the few videos from this press cycle of the cast playing video games, YouTuber jacksepticeye invited Black and co-stars Charlie Day and Keegan Michael Key actually played Super Mario Kart. How were there not a million of these? Why are we re-assuring fans that this is a faithful adaptation of a video game—one without much of a story—when we could just watch these famous people play them?
Goofiness and play are Black’s M.O., and he is an established brand when it comes to video games. In addition to starring in fellow nostalgia trips with a gaming edge, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle and its sequel Jumanji: The Next Level, he’s also starring in the upcoming Borderlands movie and pushing for a Red Dead Redemption film. More importantly, Jack Black understands the internet better than his co-stars. Part of that is because he was a YouTuber for a few years there. In 2018, Black launched JablinskiGames, a gaming channel in which he played video games with his kids and annoyed them with his boisterous voice and amateur playing style.
Even his dumb tie-in content does more to sell the Mario movie than the trailer. Was this really so hard, giving celebrities an augmented reality Mushroom Kingdom to run around in? Of course, Black’s just an oddly charismatic and amusing guy to see do something like this. It’s not a trained skill to make something out of nothing, the equivalent of talk show banter in action. He’s no stranger to enthusiastic and enjoyably stupid web content (see: Jack Black’s Do A Kickflip video), and the Mario movie could’ve used more of it.
Ultimately, Jack Black kept the Super Mario Bros. Movie fun as the rest of us in the media were getting swept up in the ridiculous controversies regarding the film. While ire drives clicks, it’s much more enjoyable to sit back and watch this carnival barker shepherd us into theaters. At the very least, it sufficiently convinced us that, even if the movie isn’t so hot, Black’s Bowser will probably live up to the hype.
37 Comments
Don’t mind me, I’m just waiting for that insufferable prick CharlieBrown to chime in with his blazing hot “Jack Black sucks, he’s insufferable” take. Also, I didn’t realize he stopped working on his YouTube channel, that’s a bummer. I wasn’t a diehard fan, but I’d occasionally watch his videos and he always seemed like the fun uncle you’d want to spend a day with.
I’m subbing for him today: “Jack Black sucks, he’s insufferable”
Unexpected. The jig is up, my bait didn’t work. I was looking forward to watching him rage.
Sorry. I’m not a fan of the Black, but I’m trying to have a chill Friday.
Ha! DumbfuckBrown doesnt like Jack Black? He’s an even bigger piece of shit than I thought.
You know you’re an asshole when this guy and I manage to actually agree on something.
I thought the Super Mario Bros movie (1993) was very good, even though the critics didn’t care for it. I’m here for anything Black does.
It was entertaining at times, but even crazier are the stories about how it was made.
Googling even as I sit here, lol.
Long story short:
Wild. 15 years ago I said to my SO “I wonder if anyone will even be willing to make movies in the future” because the money, the mere logistics of such an undertaking is difficult to imagine sometimes. I had been thinking of 12 Monkeys, Gilliam’s frequent breakdowns and near-disaster of the whole thing. Cinemas were closing. Even more of them have closed now.But they keep plugging away. I miss the amazing Indies scene of the 80s and even 90s. It’s a steady menu of mostly sh*t now, but people still love the experience. And we have the on-set legends.
I miss the amazing Indies scene of the 80s and even 90s.The thing is, it’s easier than ever to make an indie movie that looks good on a shoestring budget (you can make a professional looking film on an iPhone, for cryin’ out loud) , the struggle is finding them amidst all the chaff.
I’ll take your word for that since I have no idea where to find them either. I failed to note that it took an enormous amount of hustle to get those small films onto the screen in the first place. Since I don’t live in NYC, a college town or anywhere else you might find anything happening, it’s a struggle to find good art.If you have and inside (or outside) info, I’d be grateful for it.
Unless there’s a weird indie theater, the place to find them is DEEP in the weird streaming service wilderness of stuff like Tubi. I’ve found some truly atrocious movies that were clearly made with a cell phone, a free trial of Adobe After-Effects, and raw enthusiasm. Theoretically there’s going to be a few GOOD movies drifting around out there, as well.
Thanks.
Had Dennis Hopper already gone clean by that time? It seems like that’s the sort of movie you had to be heavily medicated to deal with.
That’s an interesting question. I’ve always been downright terrified of Hopper, and watching him on screen is always a challenge. I’m reading that he got sober in the mid-80s? So I’m guessing he was doing ok by 1993. Apparently John and Bob were fairly intoxicated most of the time, as was a good many of the others. That’s not surprising, I suppose. I don’t think that would be tolerated today – insurance issues for one reason.
Oh he is terrifying, obviously in more famous films, but in 1993 Hopper was also in another film “Red Rock West” that I like a lot but which has somehow been forgotten these days. The other main character was played by a young Nicholas Cage, but before he became, well, Nicholas Cage, so he gave a good, lowkey performace countering Hopper’s menace.
Thanks for the recommendation. I thought I knew Cages’ filmography. Obviously not.
Thank god they blurred his crotch. Can you imagine the mass psychological damage if the public was exposed to the vague outline of a man’s genitals?
Blurring that sort of thing always makes it 100x worse. The implication was that he had his whole dick exposed out there on daytime television.
Yeah, when i saw that I couldn’t help but think that he must have been going commando under that (presumably rented) costume.
Under the DeSantis regime, Ted Nugent would personally come to your house and shoot you in the face just to spare your American Puritan eyes.
This synopsis of Jack Black’s adjacency to video games is distastefully ignoring the Black and Double Fine body of work.
I’m nearing the end of Psychonauts 2, and his song as Psi King is pretty awesome. Good character work on the voice as well.
I’m a big fan of most of Brutal Legends.
I really wish they made a sequel. It’s hella flawed but it’s also one of the funniest and most interesting games I’ve played and I think the whole “character action RTS” concept would rock in this day and age.
Also , this:
WTF
WHat aboutthe amazing Anya Taylor Joy???
She dressed as peach in her mariokart outfit on the red carpet.
She’s also the girl of my dreams and my future wife.
Ehh this guy is the living embodiment of ADHD insufferability.
I like him in small doses. Like his character in High Fidelity.
Kotaku’s become a race between Super Mario hot takes and slideshows to see who can crank out more by the end of the week.
I bet every second anyone spends with Jack Black is just exhausting.
It is, because sex is exhausting.
huh???
Watched the movie with my kids on the weekend. Jack Black’s Bowser completely stole the show. I cannot imagine the movie without him in that role, it was so good. The only big laughs in the theatre were from his scenes.
Jack Black was the only one who knew how to sell The Super Mario Bros. MovieIn retrospect, as Mario becomes the biggest animated movie of all time, this headline is kinda funny.