As I mentioned on Monday, this week is all about wrapping up loose ends, so today I’m having a look at the rest of Jakks’ Super Mario Bros Movie figures. And how about that movie, eh? It sure has been taking in a few bucks here and there. Last time, I had a look at those Super Mario Bros themselves, and today we’ll round out this assortment with Peach, Toad and Bowser!

The figures come in window boxes that let you see the figures themselves, which isn’t something to be taken for granted these days. The boxes are black and not terribly flashy, although you do get some nice color in the movie logo. These are all collector friendly, but I probably won’t be saving these boxes as I have a spot to display these figures in my Game Cave. Let’s start with Toad.

Toad is just as adorable as you might imagine and Jakks really did a nice job on this figure! He’s the smallest of the bunch with his mushroom capped noggin being just a smidge bigger than his entire body, but he still feels quite substantial. Toad sports his blue and orange vest, which is part of the body sculpt, and some big and puffy pants with a sculpted waist tie in the front and brown shoes peeking out at the bottom. His face is a simple design of two oblong black eyes and a rather softly sculpted smiley slit for a mouth. All that’s great, but the sculpt and paint really shine around back with his stocked backpack full of gear. It includes a coiled rope, drinking cup, and lantern. All of these are part of the sculpt and look great. There’s also a big slot in the middle for his frying pan. So, sad story here. When I went to bed last night the cats were playing floor hockey with his frying pan. I didn’t think anything of it, but today when I went to retrieve it, the damn thing had disappeared. It’s too big for them to eat, so it’s got to be somewhere, but if you want to see it, you’ll have to just look at the packaged shot. My guess is that the Universe could not bear me showing off two frying pan accessories in one week. If it turns up, I’ll add some pictures later on.

As small as Toad is, I’m amazed that Jakks actually gave him leg articulation. Not only do his feet swivel left and right, but he can actually sit down! Of course, that backpack makes him pretty back heavy, but I have been able to tweak him to stand with it, it’s just not easy. Toad also sports a ball joint in his neck, which allows for a little up and down movement. His arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders but just single hinges in the elbows. I just love how great this little guy came out. He’s so colorful and fun to play around with. Let’s move on to Peach!

I was expecting Peach to be a teepee of a figure and that’s sure what we got! From the waist down she’s just a plastic cone with tiny feet sculpted under it. But she does make for a really pretty sculpt. Her outfit is cast in two-tone pink with big ruffles on her shoulders, a blue and gold broach on her chest, and a red jeweled crown nested atop her head. The blonde hair is sculpted perfectly, and her face features those cool “realistic eyes” that we saw on the Mario Bros themselves, which feature clear plastic lenses over painted eyes.

With bubkis articulation in the legs, Peach does get a ball joint in the waist and neck, rotating hinges in her shoulders, and single hinges in her elbows. Unfortunately those balloon shoulders really inhibit much lateral movement to the point where they might as well just be rotating. All these hits to Peach’s articulation don’t really bother me too much, but in light of how agile she was in the movie, it’s fair to say this figure doesn’t really reflect that. I would have liked to see Jakks release her in her jumpsuit with better articulation, but I have a feeling this line will be one assortment and done. Oh yeah… Peach also comes with an umbrella accessory, which the cats were not at all interested in. Anyway, as limited as her play potential is, I still like her a lot.

And that brings us to the big brute, Bowser. Bowser really stole the movie for me. Sure, I was pretty liquored up, but a couple of his scenes almost had me pissing myself laughing. Anyway, this is a big and beautiful figure with some really nice texturing on most of the skin, and some cartoony bulbous aspects to the design that reflect both the movie and video games very well. He has a lot of useful articulation too, with rotating hinges all over the place, swivels in his ankles, and even two swivels in his stubby tail. Granted, he’s best displayed in his sumo-squat position, but there’s still a ton of play value here when it comes to poseability.

The coloring on this guy is also fantastic with the yellow and green blending together in certain places. The green is most pronounced on his shell, along with some brown rings around his spikes. The shock of red hair and eyebrows adds even more pop to the deco. The only thing here that grounds him are the black bands around his wrists and biceps, and even those have some silver studs to make them shine.

There’s no articulation in the mouth, but Jakks makes up for that with his electronic feature. His shell comes off to reveal a battery compartment. Pop in three AAA batteries, add a few drops of water to the concealed hole in the back of his head, and press the button hidden under one of his spikes and his mouth glows red and he blows smoke! It looks awesome, but you have to keep pressing the spike to keep the smoke flowing. Still, this is an amazing little feature and a nice surprise, as I had absolutely no idea about when I bought the figure.

Peach and Toad retail at $20, which is the same as Mario and Luigi. It’s a lot of pretty plastic, but with less articulation, it feels like these should have sold for about $15 each. Luckily, I picked them up when Target had them on sale for about that. They are both great looking figures, but they don’t have the same fun factor as the Mario Bros do. It’s even crazier when you consider that I got Bowser for only $30. He’s much bigger, has much more complicated articulation and has the electronic feature too, easily making him the best buy out of the bunch. But aside from quibbling over a few bucks, I think this assortment turned out fantastic, and I’m still hoping to get back to the theater to see this movie one more time! It would be great to see another wave out of the movie, with a different version of Peach and some of the Kongs, and with how well it’s doing, I suppose that’s possible.

People who know me know I’m a SEGA guy. I had a Master System before an NES and a Genesis before an SNES. And despite some epic schoolyard brawls over which was better, I eventually learned that it’s only a rivalry if you’re a shareholder in one of the companies. Oh yeah… also, SEGA obviously lost the battle anyway. Suffice it to say that I’m still a big fan of many Mario games, and I was excited to see the movie, which turned out to be absolutely delightful. I laughed a lot and had fun picking out all the little hidden nods. Jakks Pacific gave us some toys from the movie, which had a big presence at Target, and I eventually snapped up Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, and Bowser. Today I’m having a look at the Mario Bros themselves!

Obviously, this is not Jakks first outing for Mario. They’ve had an extensive run of toys based on the games for a while now, and I even reviewed their 4-inch Mario and Luigi figures all the way back in 2015. These new offerings weigh in at 5-inches, making them not only bigger than the regular line, but the Figma release as well. The figures come in window boxes to show off the goods and you get a big picture of Mario on front, regardless of what character is inside. With the black backdrops, these aren’t the most striking package designs out there, but they do let the figure do the talking, and in this case that ain’t a bad thing. Let’s start with Mario!

So, first off, I love that the movie did not mess with the look of the characters at all. These aren’t updated or modernized or any of that nonsense. These could have been based on one of the recent games and I wouldn’t know any difference. The proportions are really nice, with Mario having a short and chunky build and a gloriously big head. A lot of the coloring on this figure is in the plastic, which makes for some bright and shiny colors that really pop and not a lot of room for paint flubs. And what paint is here is pretty sharp and clean. I especially like the shiny gold paint used on the clips for his overalls. Sculpted detail is kept to a minimum to convey the cartoony look, but you do get some stitching around the overalls and laces in the shoes.

Oddly enough, one of the call out features on the boxes are the “realistic eyes” which leads me to believe the person who wrote that has never seen real human eyeballs. I’m kidding, and clearly its referring to the way the eyes are designed with actual clear plastic lenses and the eyeball painted behind it. It gives a bit of an illusion that the figure’s eyes are moving to always look at you. It’s not really that spectacular an effect, but the eyes do look great and I think it’s cool that they tried something creative like that. The rest of the head sculpt is spot-on Mario with a bulbous nose and big broom of a mustache. The hat actually looks like it’s a separate sculpt and attached to the head. Que Bella!

When you get down to it, the articulation here really isn’t all that different than the older 4-inch figures, and that’s not a bad thing. The knees are still single hinges, the hips are ball jointed and you get rotating hinges in the shoulders. The big difference here is the rotating hinges in the elbows, which offers a bit more display options. Mario is still a chunky little dude, so the range of motion is limited, but he can still run, jump, and do the usual Mario things. All the joints feel great, and overall the figure has a great in-hand feel that begs to be played with.

Mario comes with one accessory and that’s his plunger. It’s simple, his right hand is sculpted to hold it, and here’s where my only nitpick with the figure lies. I usually talk about price at the end, but let’s do it here. These figures debuted at $20 and that’s a spicy meatball! They really needed some more extras to justify that price. A simple power-up block, a super star, a little static Goomba… anything would have helped. Heck, even Jakks’ smaller and cheaper 4-inch line each came with a cardboard power up box with a little mystery bonus accessory in there. OK, let’s move on to Luigi!

I don’t want to snub Green-Mario, but pretty much everything I said for Mario holds true here and I don’t have much else to say other than the figure looks fantastic. Luigi is taller and a little less chunky, and his overalls are darker blue, but that just makes the bright green pop all the more. Because of his longer legs and arms, it’s a little easier to get Luigi into those running poses, but the points of articulation are all the same.

Luigi’s accessory is a flashlight, which he carries in the movie and while it’s not the same style as in the games, it’s still appropriate if you’re a fan of his Haunted Mansion series. I really liked that a number of his solo scenes in the movie paid homage to those games. The flashlight is a bit more substantial than Mario’s plunger, but again, just getting the one accessory hurts the value a lot. In the movie he carried a tool bag for a while and maybe they could have given one figure the bag and the other the stuff to put in it.

I picked up Mario as soon as I saw him and while I loved the figure, the price point seemed too high to go in on the rest of the lot. But shortly after these got released, Target put them on sale for $13.99 each and that’s when I grabbed the remaining three figures. I guess they started to sell really well, because shortly after they went back to $20 and they seem to be holding there at most retailers now. I think $15 would have been the magic number. But quibbling about pricing aside, these really are excellent figures. The simple sculpts capture the character’s perfectly, the colors look great, and they are fun to play around with. Next week, I’ll finish up this assortment with a look at Toad, Peach, and Bowser!