Overview: With help from Princess Peach, Mario gets ready to square off against the all-powerful Bowser to stop his plans from conquering the world.

Verdict: Nintendo’s iconic Italian plumber Mario and his brother Luigi make it to the big screen in this sporadically funny CG-animated action-adventure.

An impressive Hollywood A-list voice cast and a script filled with nods to the video game series adds to the appeal, although by about the hour mark, you might well feel this is just one long chase movie.

The razor-sharp wit of, say, The Lego Movie is largely absent here, with a story that seems more geared towards pleasing youngsters than their accompanying adults. At least the film, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, is a vast improvement on 1993’s notoriously bad live-action Super Mario Bros, which starred Bob Hoskins as the titular Mario.

Here, Chris Pratt voices Mario, joined by Charlie Day as Luigi. They’re introduced in amusing fashion – a TV commercial, in which these Brooklyn-based brothers adopt fake Italian accents to promote their new plumbing business.

It feels like a sly wink to the criticism Pratt received when the trailer landed, with many complaining about the lack of authenticity in his voice work.

After Mario and Luigi are separated following a detour into an alternate universe, the sliver of a plot sees them butt heads with the turtle-like villain Bowser (Jack Black), “the most evil, wretched creature alive”.

He is plotting to rule the world and – if she’ll have him – marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), the leader of the Mushroom Kingdom. Desperate to rescue his brother, Mario has to join forces with Peach to fend off Bowser.

The film’s best moments come when it emulates various Mario game iterations. Early on, the siblings are rushing to a plumbing job, leaping over obstacles on a building site much like a classic platform-style video game.

Later, Mario Kart features, and there’s even a nod to that other Nintendo classic, Donkey Kong – the character voiced by Seth Rogen – with iron girders and barrels included.

There’s clearly a love for the games here, right down to the familiar chimes of old-school sound effects and lessons in how to power up.

For all the inspired moments – like Bowser’s piano interlude as he repeatedly croons Peach’s name – there’s a lot that feels lazy too. The soundtrack is peppered with obvious ’80s hits – Take on Me, Holding Out for a Hero and so on.