The incredible Bob Hoskins and the hilarious John Leguizamo star in the 1993 adaptation of the popular video game "Super Mario Bros." A lot of people haven't heard of this film, and for some good reasons- it was a critical and commercial failure, seems to only exist as a cult film now, has been disowned by many of its stars, and for it's greatest offense- complete and total disregard for its source material.
The games were essentially fantasy, taking place in the magical Mushroom Kingdom ruled by Princess "Peach" Toadstool, and teaming with the various other character who inhabit it (such as Toad, Yoshi and of course Mario and Luigi, plumbers). The evil King Koopa (or "Bowser") will occasionally attack in some attempt to conquer the kingdom, but the heroic brothers Mario and Luigi are always there to stop him. That's about it for the story- it's very basic, very simple. It works. It's a tried and true formula. Just your basic knight-in-shining-armor-saving-the-day.
You'd think something so basic would be impossible to mess up. Somehow, this film did just that.
Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (apparently with help from several other uncredited directors) along with a team of writers brought this film to the masses. While the games were bright, colorful fantasy with a simple story, Morton/Jankel completely twisted the entire story into a sort of dark-yet-childish Sci-Fi "What if?" about New York City and parallel dimensions and dinosaurs who escaped extinction. The opening scene of the film alone changes the entire set-up for the story, and within 5 minutes, you could easily forget you're even watching an alleged Mario movie.
But I'll get back to the blatant source-material slaughter later, and address the movie on its own (limited) merits now.
The film starts out with a "flashback" that theorizes that the meteor which "killed" the dinosaurs instead created a rift and an alternate dimension where the dinosaurs were transported, and able to evolve into intelligent, human-like beings. We then see the feared dictator of this alternate dimension, King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) pursuing a woman in our world, trying to get back a shard of the meteor- though it's never fully explained, re-inserting this shard into the meteor will merge both dimensions, and allow Koopa to take over our world. The woman drops off a large egg at a church, before appearing to die, while Koopa is sent back to his world. The egg hatches, and a human baby female is found inside.
Years later, the "Mario Bros." (although in this film, they are changed into adoptive father/son figures), owners of a small plumbing business in Manhattan, are dealing with frustration with a rival- Scapelli Construction, who seems to be stealing most of their work.
The baby has grown into Daisy, a beautiful young archaeologist who is excavating dinosaur fossils around the Brooklyn Bridge. She and Luigi meet and fall in love, and one night, Luigi and Mario are forced to pursue her after she is kidnapped by Iggy and Spike, minions of Koopa. They get pulled through an inter-dimensional portal, and end up in Dinohattan (or so I've heard it called), the other-dimension's equivalent of Manhattan. From there on in, it's basically a rescue-the-damsel-in-distress tale, and is more of a light Sci-Fi adventure than a true Mario tale.
To give credit where credit is due, there are some good things about this film. For one, the effects are nice and unique, especially for an early 90's film. The production design is quite cool, Alan Silverstri's score is "Mario-esque", and the visuals are generally interesting and fun to look at. The cast kinda, sorta works in its own way, and Hoskins/Leguizamo are a ton of fun as the leads.
But the movie also does so much wrong. For one thing, as mentioned before, the film totally ignores the games, outside of using character names. There is no Mushroom Kingdom (the setting of the games), all of the animal characters are now human, the brothers are no longer brothers, too much time is spent in the "real world", they used the little-known Daisy character from the games instead of Princess Toadstool (Mario's love interest) so the younger "brother" could get the girl and appeal to the audience, Mario and Luigi's jumping ability are now the work of futuristic shoes. Nothing is designed to look remotely the same. It was like the filmmakers tried their hardest to do anything except make a faithful movie.
Also, the film is full of other problems- a large portion of the humor is not funny. A lot of the direction is sloppy. A lot of plot points are poorly written. Dennis Hopper is pretty atrocious as Koopa. The rules are not clearly established. Etc. In addition, the movie tries too much to wink and nod to the fans- at one point, Luigi even talks about being a video-gamer. It felt like they were trying to make a movie about people who play Mario Bros., rather than an actual Mario Bros. movie... an even in that respect, the movie fails overall.
This film was fun for me as 5-year-old when it first came out, as I had no real grasp on anything, and was wowed by the cool visuals. In retrospect, though, it's apparent animosity towards it's source material, and it's other faults are impossible to ignore. I have no problem with filmmakers changing some things for an adaptation, but this was ridiculous- they changed everything, and didn't even do a good job at it. Even if the movie wasn't based on "Super Mario Bros.", it would have stunk because it's too sloppy and too basic.
While not atrocious, this film is still pretty bad. A 4 out of 10 just for the cool set/visual design, and the fun leads. It's worth watching once for hardcore fans just to see how wrong they got the story/tone, but only if you can see it for free.
The games were essentially fantasy, taking place in the magical Mushroom Kingdom ruled by Princess "Peach" Toadstool, and teaming with the various other character who inhabit it (such as Toad, Yoshi and of course Mario and Luigi, plumbers). The evil King Koopa (or "Bowser") will occasionally attack in some attempt to conquer the kingdom, but the heroic brothers Mario and Luigi are always there to stop him. That's about it for the story- it's very basic, very simple. It works. It's a tried and true formula. Just your basic knight-in-shining-armor-saving-the-day.
You'd think something so basic would be impossible to mess up. Somehow, this film did just that.
Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (apparently with help from several other uncredited directors) along with a team of writers brought this film to the masses. While the games were bright, colorful fantasy with a simple story, Morton/Jankel completely twisted the entire story into a sort of dark-yet-childish Sci-Fi "What if?" about New York City and parallel dimensions and dinosaurs who escaped extinction. The opening scene of the film alone changes the entire set-up for the story, and within 5 minutes, you could easily forget you're even watching an alleged Mario movie.
But I'll get back to the blatant source-material slaughter later, and address the movie on its own (limited) merits now.
The film starts out with a "flashback" that theorizes that the meteor which "killed" the dinosaurs instead created a rift and an alternate dimension where the dinosaurs were transported, and able to evolve into intelligent, human-like beings. We then see the feared dictator of this alternate dimension, King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) pursuing a woman in our world, trying to get back a shard of the meteor- though it's never fully explained, re-inserting this shard into the meteor will merge both dimensions, and allow Koopa to take over our world. The woman drops off a large egg at a church, before appearing to die, while Koopa is sent back to his world. The egg hatches, and a human baby female is found inside.
Years later, the "Mario Bros." (although in this film, they are changed into adoptive father/son figures), owners of a small plumbing business in Manhattan, are dealing with frustration with a rival- Scapelli Construction, who seems to be stealing most of their work.
The baby has grown into Daisy, a beautiful young archaeologist who is excavating dinosaur fossils around the Brooklyn Bridge. She and Luigi meet and fall in love, and one night, Luigi and Mario are forced to pursue her after she is kidnapped by Iggy and Spike, minions of Koopa. They get pulled through an inter-dimensional portal, and end up in Dinohattan (or so I've heard it called), the other-dimension's equivalent of Manhattan. From there on in, it's basically a rescue-the-damsel-in-distress tale, and is more of a light Sci-Fi adventure than a true Mario tale.
To give credit where credit is due, there are some good things about this film. For one, the effects are nice and unique, especially for an early 90's film. The production design is quite cool, Alan Silverstri's score is "Mario-esque", and the visuals are generally interesting and fun to look at. The cast kinda, sorta works in its own way, and Hoskins/Leguizamo are a ton of fun as the leads.
But the movie also does so much wrong. For one thing, as mentioned before, the film totally ignores the games, outside of using character names. There is no Mushroom Kingdom (the setting of the games), all of the animal characters are now human, the brothers are no longer brothers, too much time is spent in the "real world", they used the little-known Daisy character from the games instead of Princess Toadstool (Mario's love interest) so the younger "brother" could get the girl and appeal to the audience, Mario and Luigi's jumping ability are now the work of futuristic shoes. Nothing is designed to look remotely the same. It was like the filmmakers tried their hardest to do anything except make a faithful movie.
Also, the film is full of other problems- a large portion of the humor is not funny. A lot of the direction is sloppy. A lot of plot points are poorly written. Dennis Hopper is pretty atrocious as Koopa. The rules are not clearly established. Etc. In addition, the movie tries too much to wink and nod to the fans- at one point, Luigi even talks about being a video-gamer. It felt like they were trying to make a movie about people who play Mario Bros., rather than an actual Mario Bros. movie... an even in that respect, the movie fails overall.
This film was fun for me as 5-year-old when it first came out, as I had no real grasp on anything, and was wowed by the cool visuals. In retrospect, though, it's apparent animosity towards it's source material, and it's other faults are impossible to ignore. I have no problem with filmmakers changing some things for an adaptation, but this was ridiculous- they changed everything, and didn't even do a good job at it. Even if the movie wasn't based on "Super Mario Bros.", it would have stunk because it's too sloppy and too basic.
While not atrocious, this film is still pretty bad. A 4 out of 10 just for the cool set/visual design, and the fun leads. It's worth watching once for hardcore fans just to see how wrong they got the story/tone, but only if you can see it for free.