Release Date: May 28th, 1993
Starring: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, and Mojo Nixon
Directed By: Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton, Roland Joffe, and Dean Semler
Written By: Parker Bennet, Terry Runte, Ed Solomon
About ten years ago, someone got the bright idea to make a movie based on the Super Mario Brothers video games. The only problem was that the games make no damn sense. Seriously, as awesome a game as it is, there really isn’t much more to it than running through the sewer and stomping on oversized turtles. Well, there’s also the part about eating mushrooms and saving a princess, but I’m entirely certain that that part of the game is real. Every time I eat mushrooms I end up believing that I’m on a quest to save some princess, only to find out that I had spent the last hour trying to smash turtles at the local pet store. Which, by the way, has a shithead for a manager who called the cops after I had already said that I was leaving.
So what did the producers of the movie do to cope with the lack of coherent plot in the various Super Mario Brothers games? They half-assed a movie that ends up being way more awesome than it has any right to be.
Often when a movie has more than one director, it is because the studio had no faith in the first director’s abilities, so they bring in someone else to finish the job. Super Mario Brothers had four directors.
The movie features a British actor and a Hispanic actor portraying two Italian plumbers, but it doesn’t matter because both actors are rad. If you can name one movie where Bob Hoskins was not excellent, than I’ll show you how quickly I can dismiss any of your opinions as utter garbage.
Dennis Hopper plays King Koopa, but instead of him being an evil turtle-monster kind of thing, Hopper plays the role as an evil dictator who for some strange reason has a phobia of germs. His most reptilian feature is a forked tongue, but other than that, he appears humanoid.
Rounding out the cast is Fisher Stevens and some other type-cast henchman whose name I can’t be bothered to look up as a bumbling duo of villainous lackeys-turned revolutionaries. The great Mojo Nixon also makes a cameo appearance as Toad. In the movie, he’s a politic folk singer instead of a weird mushroom guy.
One of the best parts of the movie is the very end. After the day has been saved, and life is getting back to normalcy for the Mario brothers, Princess Daisy comes back from Koopa’s dimension looking she just stepped out of Mad Max. Apparently there is now war in the alternate world, and Mario and Luigi must return to save the day, once again! To be continued….
The great thing about this ending is that fact that by the time you’re seeing the ending, you’ve already watched the rest of the movie, so you know that there’s no way this flick can make enough to warrant a sequel. That isn’t to say it’s a bad movie, just a movie that no one will appreciate, or bother to see in the first place, but who can blame them? The trailer, movie poster, and plot make the movie sound absolutely horrific.
Movie Quality: I would venture to say that Super Mario Brothers is one of the best video game movies ever made. But to be fair, I smoke drugs.
Faithfulness to the Game: The first complaint that most people have about Super Mario Brothers is the amount of liberties that the movie takes form the original video game. Seriously though, I’m surprised these imbeciles are able to find time to make so many complaints, what with all those photo-shopped fake hardcore jpeg’s of Natalie Portman that they have yet to masturbate to.
