It’s weird that one of the things people have been most interested about as far as the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie is concerned is how everyone sounds. I mean, we know who the cast is, have known that forever, but what we haven’t known is the extent to which each actor was going to ham it up.
It’s why everyone has been so obsessed with Chris Pratt’s Mario, and why Jack Black seems perfect as Bowser because...he’s done that voice 1000 times and he was born for the role. One major voice we haven’t heard yet, though, is Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong, and it was also one that could have gone in any number of directions.
As this Thomas Game Docs video below explains, Donkey Kong’s voice has been all over the place over for decades. While Charles Martinet’s Mario is Mario to successive generations, there’s been zero consistency as far as Donkey Kong is concerned.
Which means, I guess, that this movie was free to go in whatever direction it wanted with the character, and that’s exactly what has happened. As this short new trailer released during the Eagles v Niners game tonight shows, Seth Rogen has been hired to...just be Seth Rogen.
Much of that trailer has been shown before, with Mario getting the absolute shit beaten out of him, but obviously that end section with Donkey Kong speaking is new. Also great to see the cat suit make an appearance, because the more this movie can lift from Super Mario 3D World—which more than any other Mario game plays like a big budget animated film—the better.
Not that any of this talk about Donkey Kong’s voice even matters, since it’s not like that’s the characters main appeal anyway.