1. Animation is surprisingly solid, especially for Illumination. You can tell Nintendo shelled out the big bucks to make this look good.
2. Jack Black’s Bowser was great. I like that he’s actually trying to sound like Bowser and not giving him a joke voice. Bowser was, overall, pretty intimidating for a cartoon villain.
3. The gag where the Penguins fight back like action heroes and it’s just snowballs and Bowser’s just standing there did make me laugh.
4. Sorry, Chris Pratt just DOES NOT sound like Mario. It’s such a friggin’ disconnect between the actual shape of Mario and the voice they give him. They do not belong together.
5. Toad was great. Moving on.
6. SHOW ME MY BOY LUIGI YOU COWARDS!
7. Maybe it’s because my expectations were so low going in, but I was pleasantly surprised by the trailer.
8. Basically, there’s two way you can play a Mario Movie. Either you take it completely 100% seriously and play ridiculous and insane part of the cartoon world they exist in straight, or absolutely nothing is taken seriously. They seem to be leaning towards the former right now.