The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) review

Italian plumbers Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day), who aren't having much luck with their business, find out their beloved Brooklyn is flooding and try to fix it, get sucked into a magical pipe and are separated ... leaving Mario to team up with valiant mushroom pal Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to rescue Luigi and fight against horny turtle Bowser (Jack Black).  Visually, it's extremely loyal to the long-running Nintendo series (created by Shigeru Miyamoto): I appreciate how it replicates the 2D "feel" of the early games and even finds a way to incorporate other related works into it (like the super dangerous Rainbow Road from Mario Kart), and the voice acting is fun (particularly Black, who also sings, as well as Key).  The issue is that all it amounts to is fan service: they custom-made an animated feature that "emulates" a game and marketed it to Gen Z - who spend a lot of their free time playing these things (as well as Fortnite, Call of Duty etc.) - but the lingering sense after viewing it is that I'd rather have just picked up my Switch and spent ninety minutes with that.  If that was the desired response, mamma mia let's-a go!