Movie Review: ***^ The Super Mario Brothers Movie (2023)

 Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are plumbers in Brooklyn.  They get sucked through a pipe to mushroom land.  They go separate routes.  Mario meets Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) who takes him to Princess Peach's (Anya Taylor-Joy) castle.  Luigi ends up in the dark kingdom which is under Bowser's (Jack Black) control.  Bowser has threatened Princess Peach that she must marry him or he will destroy her kingdom.  Mario and the princess team up to rescue Luigi and confront Bowser.  They recruit Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) and his army to help.  They are taking a short cut, but Bowser expects this and ambushes them.  The rainbow road is partially destroyed and Kong and Mario fall into the ocean and are swallowed by an eel.  They escape and get to Peach's castle during the wedding ceremony between Peach and Bowser.  The wedding thwarted Bowser launches a rocket against the mushroom kingdom.  Mario diverts it into a pipe where it explodes and sucks Bowser and everyone to Brooklyn.  Bowser is terrorizing Brooklyn until Marion and Luigi use invincibility stars to defeat Bowser and his minions.  Peach uses a blue mushroom to shrink Bowser who is captured in a bottle.

This is the first animated feature to gross over $1 billion.  There must be many, many Mario players who were immediate fans.  The movie follows the game fairly well.  The movie is a project from Nintendo and Illumination.  

At the Movies: ***^ Animal Farm (2025)

 Animal Farm is an animated version of the story from George Orwell.  On the day the farm is being repossessed and all the animals are being sent to the slaughter house, not the laughter house the animals decide to rebel.  The kick all the humans out, and start to work for themselves.  Snowball (Laverne Cox) is the pig with enough knowledge to determine the evil intent of the farmers.  While Napoleon (Seth Rogen) is his rival in power and leadership.  Lucky (Gaten Matarazzo) is a friend of both, and caught in the middle.  Boxer (Woody Harrelson) is a horse that is old but hard working.  Frieda Pilkington (Glen Close) is a billionaire bank owner who envies the farm and will do anything to get it.  Her team insists the animals pay for the mortgage, $1000 monthly.  The have a. big sell and make the money plus some.  Snowball sees a chance to improve themselves with a water wheel to generate electricity.  Napoleon uses his efforts to turn the rest of the animals against her, and they kick her out.  He keeps changing the rules intent on keeping humans out.  Napoleon manipulates the water wheel to kick Snowball out, thus he is the sole power.  He makes agreements with Pilkington to get a fancy car, starts walking on two legs, and sets the pigs above the other animals.  He then has the animals complete the wheel for electricity, but goes further to have Pilkington build a dam for even more power.

It finally all catches up with him and everything comes tumbelimg down.  This movie wasn't as could as I had hoped.  It is from Angel Studios.  

There are a couple of themes.  One is to stand up for what you know is right, instead of accepting another person's view.  Another is that capitalism has its faults; but lastly that communists are greedy and so that system will always have its corruption and will never work.