The best word to describe a lot of people’s feelings regarding The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the time leading up to its release would likely be “anxious.”

Video game movies have a reputation for general being very bad, with many of a certain age remembering the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie that was considered one of the worst movies of all time when it was released. This feeling of anxiety wasn’t helped by the announcement that Illumination, the studio thought cursed us all with the Minions, would be behind production of the movie. That combined with the studios usual penchant for casting celebrity voices, and not proper voice actors, left many feeling this would be another run of the mill, bargain bin Illumination film.

Then the trailer came out. The trailer proved very promising, I said as much in this very column, and so I entered The Super Mario Bros. Movie with excitement, but mild trepidation about its quality.

The movie is pretty much the basic Mario story. Mario (Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day) are plumbers living in Brooklyn trying to make a living. Their father (voiced by original Mario actor Charles Martinet) disapproves of them leaving their steady job with the Wrecking Crew (that’s a deep cut no one under 25 is going to get) to pursue becoming plumbers.

The brothers eventually investigate a massive leak that leads them into a warp pipe where they are then separated. Luigi winds up captured by the forces of the evil Koopa King Bowser (Jack Black), while Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom where he befriends Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and the Mushroom Kingdom’ s monarch Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). Mario sets out to save his brother by assisting Peach in recruiting an army of Kongs in the Jungle Kingdom, before Bowser arrives.

I can safely say that I really did enjoy this movie, and found myself having a really good time watching it. Illumination surprisingly managed to stick the landing, but not without a few hiccups.

Let’s start with the positives. Visually the movie is stunning and makes a lot of excellent use of familiar musical cues and sound effects from the games. It is never overbearing, and in fact, is used sparingly enough that it is a joy each time they come up.

Vocal performances are pretty good as well, even Chris Pratt sounds better in the actual movie than he did in the trailer (although still seems to be lacking in some areas). The strongest voice performance is definitely Jack Black as Bowser, who steals every scene he is in.

If I had to knock points, I’d say I wasn’t a big fan of Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong or Fred Armisen’s Cranky Kong. Both were serviceable, but left something to be desired.

The weakest parts of the movie are definitely the use of licensed music, it never really feels appropriately placed and takes you out of the movie. Although, that is less of a Mario movie problem and more a wider symptom of animated movies post-Shrek (now before the hate mail comes through, I like Shrek).

I also felt that the early Brooklyn-based scenes of the movie felt the most like Illumination’s usual fair in terms of tone and humor and that just didn’t land for me.

So despite misgivings leading into the film’s release. I really liked The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and honestly, if they can keep this level of quality for future films, then I think we’ll have some of the first really enjoyable video games ever.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie gets an 8/10.