Vinay Menon: The world is falling apart but, sure, get outraged by Chris Pratt’s voice in the new Super Mario movie

To oversell and underdeliver is a mortal sin in Hollywood.

I recall sitting in a theatre with my wife when “The Phantom Menace” came out. I gradually started to pray a lightsabre would slice through the big screen and pierce my aorta. That profoundly disappointing prequel destroyed my childhood love of “Star Wars.” It was like going to Burger King for the first time in 25 years and finding a corporate pivot to an all-kale menu. Don’t you lunatics realize I came here for a Whopper?

Nostalgia is a hell of a narcotic. Behold the reaction to the first trailer for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which arrived Thursday. As one headline framed it: “Chris Pratt’s Mario Voice Baffles Fans After First Listen: ‘Holy S — t It’s Literally Just Chris Pratt’s Voice.’”

I’m no expert on Super Mario, the video game upon which this computer animated film is based. I was more Team Ms. Pac-Man. But it seems fans are disappointed Mr. Pratt does not sound like the mustachioed Italian plumber they fondly recall when they skipped school and were glued to Nintendo.

It’s like hearing Keanu Reeves do a deadpan Foghorn Leghorn.

Real life has turned into one big Complaints Department. That’s why Pratt never should have oversold his voice-over plans. He set himself up to underdeliver. Earlier this year, he told Variety his Mario voice, crafted in consultation with experts, would be “unlike anything” fans heard before.

Maybe he was referring to fans who never heard him before?

To be fair, Pratt’s Mario only has two lines in the first trailer, which by Friday had racked up more than 3 million views on YouTube in less than 24 hours. The first one — “What is this place?” — does sound suspiciously like plain-old Chris Pratt, albeit after getting smacked upside the head with a Ruffoni saucepan. But to my ears, the second line — “Mushroom Kingdom, here we come!” — has a slight Italian inflection you won’t find in other Pratt characters from “Guardians of The Galaxy” or “Jurassic World.”

Luigi, heeh we a-go. Mamma Mia, is that ah raptor or ah fettuccine?

In these dark times, I suppose it is heartening some people are getting worked up over the voice of an animated character. It helps distract from the possibility we are all going to die. Did you hear Joe Biden say the prospect of nuclear Armageddon involving Russia is now set to Cuban Missile Crisis levels? Joe, that did not help as I learn to sleep with a CPAP machine.

And what exactly is this crazy Kim Jong Un plotting, dabbing gel into his Supercuts ’do before recklessly murdering fish by firing missiles over Japan? I’m tempted to buy an underground bunker — if only I had some ground!

So let’s just block out the horrors crackling around the world like firecrackers and focus on Pratt’s voice in Mario. In this small trailer sample, does he sound like a distant relative of Stanley Tucci who learned all about gaskets, elbows and diverter tees under the tutelage of Papa Smurf? Yes. If cast to play Elvis in a biopic, might he end up sounding like a California surfer dude recovering from a head injury? Maybe.

But beyond the overselling, is any of this Chris Pratt’s fault? No.

In this role, he was always damned if he does and damned if he non la fa. The wokesters and snowflakes have put the fear of Beelzebub into the entertainment industry. Instead of just fretting about budgets and box office projections, execs now must worry someone on set may get cancelled before the marketing plan is even finalized. A pox on the easily outraged.

But that’s just reality: if Pratt’s Mario sounded like a histrionic extra in a ’70s mob movie, the tweeting rageaholics would cry racism faster than you can say fuggedaboutit. This is accent appropriation!

No, this is a movie in which Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong. Settle down and find something better to worry about, like sending good karma to my Blue Jays.

Assuming our theatres have not vanished in a mushroom cloud by the spring, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” comes out in April. That gives us a few months to remember a few things, such as the definition of acting.

Is it wrong for a straight actor to play a gay character, or vice versa? Or is that… acting. Daniel Day-Lewis does not have cerebral palsy, but you wouldn’t know it after watching “My Left Foot.” Acting. I would love to see Simu Liu in a production of Macbeth, even though he is not a Scottish army general transported to 2022 from the Shakespearean era. Acting.

I recently told a senior editor I feel like I’ve tumbled into bizarro world.

And I’m already dreading the column I’ll have to write in two years when “Garfield” comes out and people freak out: Chris Pratt is not a cat!

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