The process of reviewing movies is broken.

The system we expect to serve as a barometer for the quality of a film is not working the way we want.

But while it's not working the way we want, it is working the way they want.

You see, the review process may be broken, but the powerful people who broke it wanted to stay that way.

Hello, Internet. Welcome to Film Theory, the show that hides power-ups inside of bricks.

So at this point do I even need to ask if you've seen the Mario movie?

It's been shaking loose so much coin that you'd think you were suddenly in Wario land.

This thing is a mega mushroom-sized hit at the global box office, sitting at nearly $1 billion in worldwide gross as I write this with no signs of slowing down. This thing has put up such huge numbers that industry experts are even bumping up their projections for the entire year of cinema earnings just because of this one film.

Everyone is calling out the fact that this one movie has such a shocking over performance, which can we just be real here?

Mario is more recognizable to children than Mickey Mouse. People are surprised that a feature film from the marketing masterminds behind the minions is doing well.

Whoa, color me shocked loyal theorists. Who could have seen this one coming? I'm like a surprised Pikachu up in here.

But something that was a legitimate surprise to me and to the internet at large was the response from movie critics, especially when compared to how different it was from all the normal people walking out of it.

As of the writing of the script, just 59% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes scored this one positively, planting it in the rotten category.

And I just gotta say, that does not track with the movie that I saw. Was the Mario movie perfect? By any means? No, clearly not.

I was pretty upfront in my last theory acknowledging the weak pacing, the poor character motivation, and the fact that the soundtrack

is just like the director forgot to turn off his Spotify playlist. But just listen to some of these

reviews, quote, the whole package is a deranged mishmash, an assault on the senses with a subpar

animation style. The Super Mario Brothers movie is the illumination style done at its absolute worst.

Okay, the absolute worst. Are you sure about that? Meanwhile, the audience reception sits

comfortably at 96% positive, much closer to what seems to be the consensus from all us lowly

normies and other armchair reviewers on YouTube. I don't know what the movie critics watched, but it certainly wasn't this film.

This is not by any means a bad movie.

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