The second trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie is out, and reactions haven’t been great. In particular, the new trailer hasn’t given us any new reasons to hope that Chris Pratt’s voice work is better than the first trailer made it out to be.
Tellingly, the trailer doesn’t show off much of Mario’s voice at all. The teaser introduced Jack Black’s Bowser and Keegan-Michael Key’s Toad, and the new trailer highlights Charlie Day’s Luigi and Anya Taylor-Joy’s Peach, but we’ve still heard comparatively little Mario, although we do get two lines taken straight from the games: “Let’s-a go” and “Wahoo.”
AND EVEN THOSE DON’T SOUND GOOD.
Because Nintendo fans operate at ten times the speed of light, people on Twitter have already started coordinating across continents to compare Pratt’s Mario voice to the actors voicing him in Europe. Here’s Mario’s French voice:
This Twitter user helpfully compiled a side-by-side comparison of the two voices:
And here’s what Mario sounds like for German audiences:
The German and French voices sound so energetic and excited! Why is Pratt’s Mario so lackluster? Why does he sound so tired and unenthusiastic? Is he just trying to match the tone of Charles Martinet’s Mario in the games? Riding a go-kart on a rainbow should be thrilling, not mildly amusing! I make more excited vocalizations when I’m playing Mario Kart!
When the first trailer came out, fans feared that instead of a voice actor working to turn their voice into a plausible Mario, we would just get Chris Pratt being Chris Pratt. It seems like that’s what might be happening, and it’s really disappointing.
On the bright side, Charlie Day and Jack Black both sound amazing. I’m not excited about this movie, but if the whole thing were Bowser intimidating Luigi? I’d see that on opening night.
(featured image: Nintendo/Illumination)
