Jack Black

In the first Mario film (2023), Jack Black's Bowser growls, then lets anxiety crack the voice. The lovesick tyrant is funny because sounding fearsome cannot conceal how much he wants affection. We laughed aloud at the piano scene because Black lets Bowser sound so helplessly lovelorn. In a film otherwise content with cheerful noise, he gives us a reason to listen.

His breakthrough as Barry in High Fidelity (2000) joined energetic comedy to singing. School of Rock (2003) gave his enthusiasm a purpose through Dewey Finn's music and work with children. Richard Linklater's Bernie (2011), with Black in the title role, showed how much quieter and more grounded he could be. These are useful films to remember when another franchise asks him to turn up the volume.

Po, whom he began voicing in Kung Fu Panda (2008), remains a good use of that eagerness. In Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024), he sounds delighted to be there, and Awkwafina's Zhen supplies the impatience he needs opposite him. She stays a beat ahead; he keeps talking. Their timing gives the comedy some life, even when the film cannot recover the feeling beneath the earlier outings' slapstick.

The Minecraft film (2025) shows how easily his persistence can become a problem. Jared Hess's film gives him Steve, a man who has spent too long alone with cubes, and Black plays every line at full volume. The naming of things and repeated songs are funny briefly, then exhausting. A quieter stretch might have made the next outburst welcome; instead, the film keeps asking the same joke to work.

The Mario sequel (2026) is poorer still, though Black is not the problem. His Bowser and Benny Safdie's sulking Bowser Junior come closest to giving it a story with a middle, while Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic hurry everyone towards another stop. Black still seems to know he is in a comedy when much of the cast does not. Start with School of Rock, rather than assuming the next game adaptation will know what to do with him.