The release of The Super Mario Marios Bros. Movie’s first trailer was arguably one of the most highly-anticipated events for gaming and film in 2022. Now that it’s here, loving Nintendo fans can finally start getting used to the sound of Chris Pratt as the multifaceted plumber.
Getting used to is the key phrase here. While Pratt’s Mario is not exactly the terrible sacrilege to Shigeru Miyamoto’s brainchild that many people feared it would be, it turns out that movie Mario does sound pretty much like good old Chris Pratt. Nevertheless, the fascinating world of voice acting in animated movies opens the door to hearing a vast amount of high-quality language dubs. These will undoubtedly make a lot of people think about what could have been, while vindicating the idea that Pratt was never the right man for the job.
Channeling The Mario Within
Both Pratt and some of the film’s producers hyped the actor’s voice as "unlike anything you've ever heard." This statement has been memed to death since the Mario trailer came out, especially since what most people probably wanted out of it was to hear Mario as something similar to Charles Martinet’s voice. While there are valid arguments as to why Martinet’s cartoonish tone wouldn’t work in a 90-minute movie, many fans used clips of the film’s French and Portuguese voice actors as examples of people who clearly understood the assignment better than their American counterpart.
Voice acting is truly a craft of its own. It becomes increasingly important in the realm of animated movies or those aimed to children because it widens any production’s potential audience. In places with a proud filmmaking industry and a large base of native speakers, such as France and most of Latin America, where English proficiency is also not high as in Germany and India, this leads to local dubs often matching and sometimes outclassing the American originals, at least in the eyes and ears of local markets.
Foreign language dubs often have to put in the work to absorb the small nuances the original actor’s performance gave the character. They must translate that in way that resonates with their targeted culture, while making sure as little humor and undertones are lost in translation. In Mario’s case, this has resulted in the French and Brazilian voice actors coming up with a Super Mario that is way closer to Martinet than Pratt, and judging from social media buzz, even English-speakers are loving it.
Funnily enough, Spanish-speaking Mario lacks any of Martinet's speech inflections and high-pitched voice; instead, he resembles Pratt's performance. It's possible due to these actors having to please 20 different accents, it's the blander take on Mario. While not every French and Brazilian voice actor may be able to replicate the same for Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Luigi, or Bowser, these two Marios undoubtedly offer a fantastic lesson on all the intricacies behind successful voice acting, something that Pratt's semiregular voice can't hope to accomplish.
The Problem With Chris Pratt’s Voice
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the shortcomings in this early sample of Pratt’s Mario voice comes in Jack Black’s Bowser, since the villain has garnered a positive reception from the same people expressing their displeasure with Mario’s casting. Granted, there’s not as much of an established Bowser voice beyond his grunts, roars and evil laughter. There’s no Martinet to compete with, and the same goes for practically all the cast.
The only character that comes close to Mario in terms of exposure is Luigi, yet another prominent Martinet voice in the Luigi's Mansion games. Future trailers will reveal if Charlie Day one-upped Pratt capturing the essence of his even more cartoonish sibling. Keegan-Michael Key also pulls off a frantic and noisy Toad, but in contrast, those sounds only make Pratt look more like an outlier.
Maybe this relies on the idea that “human” Mario characters are supposed to sound more grounded as opposed to their friends in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's impossible to know that at this stage, but whatever the case, no one should be hoping for a Sonic the Hedgehog design change to Pratt’s voice. The good news is that Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. Movie looks so amazing that Pratt’s voice has not produced outrage of similar proportions. It seems passable enough to not ruin the film and maybe just let it slide after a few minutes.
After the trailer came out, prolific voice actor Tara Strong doubled down on the idea that Martinet and no one else should play Mario, although maybe the message that it should have been a dedicated voice actor is a tougher idea to contest. At the moment, Pratt’s voice sounds like a trade-off. It’s the price to pay for the Mario movie many have dreamed of since their childhood, at least in America. Over in France and Brazil, movie Mario sounds almost exactly like the guy they’ve been playing with since the 90s. Mamma mia, indeed.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is scheduled to be released on April 7, 2023.