Super Mario Bros (1993)

  

I never heard of a movie based on a classic video game based on the world's famous Italian plumbers, Mario and Luigi, until I briefly saw a scene on TV--and I am glad that I did not watch the movie fully until now. When I watched it on YouTube, I was completely lost as to what I was really watching. This was supposed to be a movie based on the video game, Super Mario Bros; however, this movie barely resembled the game in almost all aspects: the scenery, the plot, the characters. This was a disappointment: I could barely watch this movie and understand how it was even linked to the game.

   GOOMBA 

First off, we get the trademarked theme music as the opening credits roll--joyful, I believe this IS going to be a fun-filled ride! However, we open up to the next scene, and my high expectations were completely dashed! The animation and the voice-over are questionable; poor quality in both ways. The prologue was already a giveaway to the audience that this movie was going to be a bomb! Really, a meteor crashes to earth and banishes the dinosaurs to another dimension?! This is one cock-and-bull story that we all can find hard to swallow! What about this one: dinosaurs evolved to humans without progressing through the mammalian stage. Implausible, is it not?

 KING KOOPA (BOWSER) 

Now, let's look at this. The brothers are plumbers (OK) and they find a beautiful attractive young woman in her 20s. But there is something that really baffles the viewer: why does Luigi get the girl and not Mario? It is revealed that Mario takes Danielle, and so I cannot say age is the issue. So I must insist that the filmmakers obviously did not do their homework before making this movie.
Even the showdown was short-lived: King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) is de-evolved to a T-Rex, but is further de-evolved to a pile of primordial slime before he could launch his ferocious attack on the plumbers.
But here's one thing that I thing really dispelled the thrill in the movie: Daisy's 'father', reduced to a fungus. Every time it retreats to its heap it makes this really gross-out sound, and it totally looks revolting! That heap literally looks like a tramp's a-hole! I mean, who thought this pile of turd would be a great idea for this movie?! Seriously. This ride has turned into a grueling slide!

 MARIO & LUIGI  

And really, Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi? I guess as much effort as possible had to be done in the dubbing to fake the Italian-American accents. I don't mind Hoskins playing Mario; he's the best at it and all. But I still have to question Leguizamo taking the part as Luigi: he didn't even sport a mustache and wore his baseball cap backwards. Not the Luigi I know at all!

 "Oh my God. How did I end up in this pile of puke?"

Well, give this movie some credit: at least the Mario brothers are plumbers, Daisy is a princess of the Mushroom Kingdom (which is mentioned in the movie), and the special effects provided for the cross-dimension transportation were good if not great. Let's not forget Yoshi, the Bullet Bills and Bob-omb! Even though they were smaller than their counterparts from the video game, at least they were there anywhere.
This movie added some intense action to the Mario universe if not to the video game at the time. Not to mention the use of fireballs from flame-throwers instead of the Fire Flower. However, I do have to deride the decision to reform the enemies: in the game, Goombas are stunted fungus monsters and Koopa is a fire-breathing terrapin; in this movie, the Goombas are eight-foot tall with disproportionately small heads and Koopa is a human being evloved from a T-Rex. Well, this is another blow to a movie based on the classic video game. Let's not forget, there has been not one mention of the Fire Flowers, Super Mushroom, or the Star of Invincibility. But the movie only takes the names and sound effects from the video game and adapt them into a different manner, which does show that this IS based on the game. But I believe there was a reason they took this movie to a different level: the actual plot of the video game at the time was too simplistic for the movie and would have driven the audience to boredom (<Raspberry blow>). So this was the path the movie-makers had taken a different approach to the movie; and I think many people who watched it had the right to praise or condemn this movie.

 

You know, I think Princess Daisy was meant to be Luigi's love interest as Princess Peach is Mario's. If a sequel were to be produced after Super Mario Bros, it would then introduce Peach as Mario's crush later on. Either way, the writers should have done their homework thoroughly as Daisy was to Super Mario Land while Peach is to Super Mario Bros.

 Come again? Check your answer, please.

However, this was just the first video game movie to be produced by Hollywood, and not the only one to bomb at the box office; others followed suit and most of them bombed worse than this one at the box office and faced very scathing attacks by critics and fans alike. If you recall the notorious Uwe Boll's movies, you would understand why this movie did not win or was nominated for any Golden Raspberry Award (it was nominated for a Saturn Award instead). If you Google the film Alone In The Dark, you will see that this travesty made the Super Mario Bros movie look like a masterpiece. A Rotten Tomatoes rating of 1% gained by the former compared with 13% by the latter proves my point. As a result, the first and not the second has been rated the worst movie AND the worst video game movie of all time (especially because it has no connection with the game), while the second again has been rated the worst video game movie but NOT the worst movie of all time (this does somehow have a faint connection with the game, though).
In all, this movie along with all other video game movies should be remade as animated versions, especially into anime. Or if in live action, again, stick with the plot of the game!