That Old Jack Black Magic: As the Villain of ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ the Actor Gives His Peachiest Performance in Years
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic I have a little ritual when it comes to animated films. I try to go into them not knowing who the cast members are.
That’s not always possible, of course. For the most part, though, I do my best to ignore the publicity and let the voices I hear surprise me — because if you don’t know who the actors are, you respond, I think, in a less biased and more spontaneous way. “The Super Mario Bros.
Movie” made my crusade easy, since the film has no opening credits. From the earliest moments, I had no idea who was voicing any of the characters.
But I did know this: When the villain, a gigantic fire-breathing horned turtle named Bowser, showed up in his studded-leather arm bands, lowered his fire-red eyebrows into a gleaming, gap-toothed grin of the most insidious megalomania and began to push and order people around, all I could think was, “I like this dude.” He had the low voice and omnipotent attitude of the world’s zillionth Darth Vader knockoff, except that you also saw how hard he was working to project that image.
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