The hate for Chris Pratt’s casting as Nintendo’s popular Mario character….honestly started as soon as he was cast and not just when the first movie trailer dropped. Myself, I remember sitting with a good friend watching a Nintendo Direct back in 2021 when he was cast for the movie. I remember the groans of my friend while I was content, not having been a fan of Pratt yet or having watched many, if any, of his movies at that time. Especially not realizing just how many movies he has voiced in overall.
Now, in 2023, whenever you go onto Twitter after a new trailer has dropped for the movie, you are met with many comments about how bad the movie will be because of Pratt…but things have taken a slight turn after the final trailer was released. The video game adaptation is set to come out next month, April 5th, and it is wild that just now, people are actually thinking the movie might be “decent.” People even explained they couldn’t sit through a whole movie of just Mario’s video game-sounding voice.
https://twitter.com/OnTheBlock01/status/1633963665429876737?s=20
Another Twitter user even went on to say that Chris Pratt’s voice as Mario is “half-bad” and that they don’t understand why Nintendo waited so long to show us that.
Chris Pratt's Mario voice isn't half bad. I have no idea why they waited for the final trailer to actually showcase it.
— Gryphman 🏳️⚧️💛🤍💜🖤 (@Gryphman) March 9, 2023
Chris Pratt has starred in countless shows and movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. Not only is he a man who holds huge franchises on his shoulders at times, but he is also a voice actor and has voiced Garfield, Emmet Brickowski from the LEGO movie, and Barley Lightfoot from the Pixar movie Onward. The simple fact is, Pratt is owned for playing heroes. Whether that be a military hero who is taking revenge on his dead wife and daughter, or a hero called StarLord who is saving the galaxy alongside a tree and a raccoon. Honestly, it isn’t a surprise they would pick someone who can hold up such serious roles but also be a goofball at the same time to be Mario.
“For us, it made total sense,” Horvath had explained during an interview with the Total Flim. “He’s really good at playing a blue-collar hero with a ton of heart. For the way that Mario is characterized in our film, he’s perfect for it.”
It is obvious from the trailers that it seems Mario is just entering the world that we all know and love him found and after Pratt’s acting in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, we know he will be a great actor for the total surprise and awe of a brand new never before the seen world. Something that was recently pointed out to me is, Mario does have a very over-the-top accent and overexcited voice throughout the games we grew up playing…and has anyone ever thought how Mario doesn’t have any long speeches or even dialogue?
Not to mention, having someone do Mario’s video game voice, as shown above in the tweet, would be annoying and would possibly make more adults feel they are watching a kid’s movie-sure, you should never feel embarrassed to enjoy something that some think to be for “kids,” but just on the money front, more adults might get annoyed and hate the movie.
My personal outlook on the film is, it’ll most likely be great. Not only because Chris Pratt is an amazing actor and comfort character for many, but it’s Mario. Why wouldn’t we love it? However, the movie is taking a very different direction with Mario going to save his brother, Luigi, and Princess Peach actually helping Mario instead of needing saving…which surprisingly, no one is hating on.
Yes, Mario does have a more watered-down accent, at least from the few clips we’ve seen, but do we really know overall what he would sound like on an everyday basis, to begin with? And would we really wanna hear the slightly annoying, overexcited accent voice for a whole movie to begin with?
