Charlie Day Says Basement-Dwellers Will Be ‘Mario’ Movie’s Biggest Critics — Besides the Actual Critics, Apparently

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Super Mario Bros. Movie star Charlie Day says that pasty losers will be the biggest disparagers of his performance as Mario’s legendary sidekick Luigi. Apparently, that’s how he prefers to describe Rotten Tomatoes.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie released today to a muted response from critics as the long-anticipated animated adaptation of the iconic video game franchise failed to “wow” tastemakers. The film sits at a 54 percent “Rotten” rating from the aforementioned review aggregator, which still seems unlikely to turn off the franchise’s fans at the box office — though it does poke a hole in a comment made by Day in an interview with SkyNews published this morning.

Day and Chris Pratt, Luigi and Mario respectively, both have 11-year-old sons, and, considering the film’s target demographic, they were asked if their kids’ reactions will be a litmus test for the film’s success. “I think my toughest critic is probably going to be some middle-aged man living in his basement somewhere,” Day snarked. “But I think my boy is going to be fine with it.” Clearly his son does not write for RogerEbert.com.

Brian Tallerico, on the other hand, is the editor for the movie review site, and in his one-and-a-half star review, he called The Super Mario Bros. Movie “as hollow as a trailer, something that willfully avoids anything creative or ambitious. Mario and Luigi deserve so much better.” A.A. Dowd of Chron added, “All that pristine computer animation is akin to polishing… well, what Mario finds in pipes during his day job.” Meanwhile, Little White Lies writer Michael Leader simply wrote, “Justice for Bob Hoskins.”

Though we admittedly don’t know what these critics’ living situations may be (and have no intention of finding out), the lukewarm reaction among media commentators shows that the movie has turned off more viewers than just the perpetually incensed internet fanboys who decided they hated the film the second they heard Pratt was inexplicably playing Mario. 

Of course, movie reviews aren’t everything, and the opinions of critics are categorically inconsequential when you’re sitting in a theater enjoying a film into which countless creatives poured blood, sweat and tears for years. Plus, there are plenty of reviews praising the film, as well Day’s performance in it. All that said, it’s clearly not just neckbeards who didn’t care for Day’s video game movie about magic mushrooms and ill-fitting voice actors. 

The basement-dweller is honestly just a boring scapegoat for deflecting criticism in 2023 — longtime fans of the franchise have a right to their opinions, regardless of where they may live or how much hair may grow from their necks. My mom will agree with me when she brings down my pizza rolls.