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| "What's the plan?" "We build a video game around just him. Again." |
One of the joys of late-stage capitalism is seeing how far we can stretch nostalgia. Fear gets the best of corporations, and to avoid risk they lean more and more on the familiar. The lack of originality is depressing, but that doesn't mean the results have to be. Last month saw the release of a perfectly fine Dungeons & Dragons movie, after all. And so this past week Hollywood tripled down, and two more loving tributes to massive products of the 80s hit cinemas. Air is about the world's most famous basketball shoe. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is about the world's most famous plumber. Like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, both are fun, approachable underdog stories. But both also have the added challenge of overcoming the fact that they are the most successful products of billion-dollar companies. Do they succeed? Kind of. Let's start with Air.
In 1984, Nike was already a massive company. Their basketball division wasn't doing great, but they were worth, as Air's version of Phil Knight (a goofy but respectable interpretation by Ben Affleck) keeps reminding people, nearly a billion dollars. (For my inflation nerds, that would be nearly three billion today). So if it were a proper sports movie, Air would be about a struggling player making a comeback within a championship team that didn't need them to come off the bench. That can still be compelling, but in this case it's a far cry from inspiring. The big idea comes from talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon, doing kind of the same tired middle man with a special feeling about this one bit as Adam Sandler in Hustle - not a complaint!) who wants Nike to bet everything on upcoming NBA draft pick Michael Jordan and design a shoe specifically around him. We know this will work here in the present, but no one but Sonny does back then, so it's an uphill fight that could cost a lot of people their jobs. Again: Compelling, but not necessarily inspiring.
And there's not much else to it. The closest thing to villains in Air is other shoe companies. Their evil schemes involve being consistent or between bosses or German. The stakes for our heroes? They may have to find other jobs... Probably at these rival companies. But we know Nike will win. And so does everyone who made this. Wisely, screenwriter Alex Convery and director Ben Affleck choose fun. There's not enough here to make a Moneyball or a Social Network. Instead they play dress-up, make big speeches and laugh at car phones and how Phil Knight looked back then. And they stack the cast with actors who are more than game. Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, and Matthew Maher are all spry and charming, with just enough gravity to make you think "Sure, it might have gone something like this..." Jason Bateman is the film's conscience, but he's still snarking it up with the rest of them. If there was someone who could have been more fleshed out, it would be his Robby Strasser, who does from time to time hint at the moral faults of Nike, but pulls back well before anything that would make the company mad is revealed.
And that's ultimately what keeps the movie from greatness. It's not that this is an underdog story about a massive shoe company, it's that the shoe company is in control of the narrative. They wield too much power in their own mythology. It's all fun and games because no one wants to get hurt. I didn't love The Founder, the 2016 biopic about McDonald's tycoon Ray Kroc, but I did respect how it didn't shy away from how he was an unrepentant asshole of a businessman. This movie could - and should - have been more critical of the company. In the end, though, Air is little more than a big, expensive - and admittedly entertaining - Nike commercial.
And speaking of commercials, let's talk about Mario. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is John Wick for children. It's nonstop set pieces, impeccable lighting, wafer-thin plotting, and nothing more. The world-building is fast and unquestioned and packed with references that Nintendo fans will eat up. It is exactly what was advertised, without ever trying to be anything but a faithful adaptation of a video game that is often just a relay race from a start point to an end point. It is squeaky clean and devoid of anything even remotely challenging. What I'm saying is you can take your MAGA grandpa to this without fear of a lecture about kids movies going woke during the drive home. And that you won't remember it by the time you get home. Tomorrow your kids will be telling the movie back to you line-by-line and you will swear you have never seen it.
The plot is simple. Probably too much so, even for an Illumination picture. Mario (Chris Pratt doing nothing of any interest, rendering months of speculation pointless) and Luigi (Charlie Day, who probably should have been Mario, tbh) stumble into the Mushroom Kingdom, where fire-breathing turtle king Bowser (the incomparable Jack Black) has stolen a power-granting star from some penguins in order to blackmail Princess Peach (the inescapable Anya Taylor-Joy) into marrying him. Luigi gets kidnapped, Peach trains Mario to be a hero, and... other things happen too. Seth Rogan plays Donkey Kong. Cart racing happens because I assume they haven't sold enough of this remote control Switch game. It's all... just a commercial for the Mario franchise.
Which is fine, I guess, but it is beyond unnecessary from an artistic standpoint. I had a good enough time while it was happening. It doesn't outstay its welcome, and it did make me want to fire up Super Mario Odyssey again. But I've already got a Mario movie in my life. The fever dream of a live-action movie they made back in 1993 was at least trying to do something. I think about that movie weekly. It was a vitally disappointing experience in my life. I saved up to buy the VHS tape, which I watched dozens of times because we didn't have many other tapes. Each watch was just as baffling, but it taught me a lot about expectations and creative interpretation and the campy genius of Dennis Hopper. I still utter "Trust the fungus" in the grocery store and think about those beefy Goombas with their tiny heads every time I get in an elevator. Nothing from the 2023 Mario movie will permeate my day-to-day, and I kind of worry this generation won't have something as bleak and ponderous to meditate on as they mature... I'm sure something will come along. Probably from Disney. Star Wars, maybe? Feels like oversaturation will be their cross to bear.
Anyways, The Super Mario Bros. Movie may be the more innocent of the two, but Air is a better movie. Both are hindered by the capitalism of it all, but are fun while they last. If either had anything consequential to add, or took more than passing glances in a mirror, there could have been something truly special in them. There's artistic merit in both, but neither will have an impact outside of the money they bring in. That's fitting. A little disconcerting. And fine. Enjoy it while you can.
Air: ⭐⭐⭐
The Super Mario Bros. Movie: ⭐⭐ 1/2
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