Reaction & Review | Super Mario Bros.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi movie from 1993. That movie is "Super Mario Bros.".

Oh yes, guys, I'm gonna be tackling *this* movie. Now, I know some of you who happen to be reading this might be asking yourself why in the hell am I covering this movie? Why am I not covering the "superior" version of the animated movie that came out in 2023? After all, that version is supposedly more accurate to the games, and it made over a billion dollars at the box office, so why even waste time covering this movie at all? Well, the short answer is I've never seen it before. So it totally counts as being eligible for this series. The long answer is because, unlike the 2023 movie, where it just basically looks like an entire commercial dedicated to Nintendo, this movie I've had an interest in simply because of what I've heard about it. Yes, I am aware this movie is in no way gonna be accurate to the games, and yes, I am also aware of it's history, which I'll briefly touch upon in a second. But also, I'm sort of a connoisseur when it comes to B movies. After all, I enjoyed movies such as the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie", and the 1993 "Judge Dredd" film, all of which were barely accurate to it's source material. So this movie should definitely be right up my alley, and could potentially join the likes of the other movies that I just listed in terms of it's campy B movie goodness.

Now as I just mentioned, this movie has a notoriously troubled history. So much so that there is a website that you could go to where it details the entire history of it's creation and what the hell happened behind the scenes. Things such as having multiple different scripts for this movie that were discarded, the actors not giving a fuck during filming, etc. Now I haven't really bothered to look up everything that happened in regards to the film's history, beyond those two things. Like I said, I only know about the multiple scripts, and I've also heard that, during the filming, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, the two main stars of the movie, got drunk on set and basically just improvised a lot of their scenes and dialogue, which actually made it into the film. Though how much of the latter is actually accurate is, admittedly, just guesswork. Perhaps maybe I'll find out sometime after I finish watching this movie.

So yeah, guys, I have almost no idea what to expect from this movie. With all of the problems that this movie suffered from, I am really interested to see what kind of a mess they made as a final product. I'm hoping that it's gonna live up to all of the B movies that I listed earlier, however, it could genuinely just be as awful as a lot of people made it out to be, and will have no redeeming factors to it at all. But I seriously won't know for myself, unless I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Super Mario Bros.".

2 minutes later

So, according to that opening narration, the meteorite that was suppose to wipe out all of the dinosaurs, somehow, ended up creating a parallel dimension to another world in which they grew up to be intelligent and smarter like humans. I have already have a *mountain* of questions about this, however I think it would be best to just let the movie play out and see where it goes with this concept before I start to ask those questions.

16 minutes later

You know, guys, this romance angle between Luigi and Daisy, so far anyway, has been incredibly cheesy and kinda stupid. But yet, for some reason, I'm...actually kinda liking it. I'm hoping that they actually go somewhere with this as the movie progresses.

10 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here, but I want to ask it anyway. So, Koopa's two henchman came back with Daisy, except the henchman didn't have the rock she wears around her neck. Which then leads into Koopa putting out a 'plumber alert' for anyone in the city to find them. But how exactly would he know where to find Mario and Luigi? His henchman has never told them what they looked like, other than that they're just plumbers. So how would anyone know on where to start looking? I'm really curious about this now, guys, and I'm hoping the movie will try to explain that at some point.

9 minutes later

So...Koopa has a de-evolving machine that can turn anybody into a Goomba for his army...interesting. Obviously, of course, they don't look like the Goombas from the games, but more so they look like, well...mini-dinosaur heads with giant bodies. I will say, though, the creature effects here look great. So, if anything else, I can at least say that much.

14 minutes later

So that little dinosaur is actually suppose to be Yoshi? I gotta say...he looks sorta cute here. OK sure, he's not really green, but then again, Yoshi's come in different colors anyways. So to have him looking more like a realistic depiction of a dinosaur is actually a really interesting choice here.

11 minutes later

OK, I have a rather dumb question here, but it's something I want to ask. So just now, Big Bertha helped Mario and Luigi escape from the Goomba's after Mario ended up stealing back the necklace from her. Even though way early on in the film, Bertha ended up stealing the meteorite from the Mario Bros. around her necklace that Koopa is wanting to get his hands on. So...does that mean then that if you steal the meteorite necklace from somebody who's wearing it they automatically turn into a good person? I have no idea, and I don't know why she would be doing this when she could've easily turned the brothers in herself. It makes no sense whatsoever. But honestly, despite that, I'm still really enjoying the movie, guys. It *really* is a lot of fun so far.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm actually really digging the music in this movie. Well, at least this track I'm listening to now anyways. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this rock music here is actually sorta catchy. And combined with the fact that Mario and the captured girls are outrunning the Goombas via a bobsledding, it actually makes the scene a little bit better, too. Just thought I wanted to mention that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Super Mario Bros.". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Wow, um...where, oh where do I even begin with this thing? There's a lot for me to talk about here, but I am gonna say, even though I kinda already gave it away earlier on, I really enjoyed the hell out of this movie. So yeah, spoilers, in case some of you wanted me to hate on this thing simply of it's inaccuracy to the games.

In fact, let's actually start with that, first, shall we? I've noticed a recent trend within the last year or so from people who have been repulsively bitching and whining about inaccuracy to the source material, whether it involves anime, video games, comic books, etc. It's the same kind of bullshit that's been going on for a very long time, and the last year or so has been overly nauseating about that, especially when you see live action adaptations of cartoons and video games being turned into movies and TV shows. And the key word there is 'adaptation', meaning that you *have* to make some changes in order for your adaptation to fully function. Otherwise, if you're just doing a straight-up translation of a series without making any changes whatsoever, then it's less of an adaptation and more like you're just doing a copy and paste job with almost no effort put into it. And that's where movies like this come in, where, yes, it is in no way accurate to the games. But to be honest, I don't think this movie was aiming for that sort of standard. It was trying to be a different beast of a movie, and this was the results that it came up with. Now granted, if I did take the time to read up the different scripts that this movie had, it probably would've been more insane than what we actually got. And while this movie has numerous problems, what we did ended up getting was something that I don't see very much of anymore. Where it actually took chances and, for the most part, ended up being a lot of fun for what it was.

So with that said, let's actually talk about the movie itself here. And I'm gonna start, as usual, with the writing. The story here is actually pretty simple in concept. So basically, there's this parallel world that exists thanks to a meteorite that crash-landed on Earth billions of years ago, where it didn't kill all of the dinosaurs, and some of them ended up becoming intelligent and smarter, and talked and acted like humans would. And in this parallel world, King Koopa is looking for a meteorite fragment that is being held by Daisy, who always wears it as a necklace. And the reason why he wants this meteor is because he's going to use it fuse together both the real world and the parallel world so that he can rule them both as one while also de-evolving the humans back into mindless apes. And as for Daisy, she's working as an archaeologist, where she is researching the same meteorite that wiped out all of the dinosaurs while some millionaire named Scapelli is trying to shut her site down. I honestly forgot why he wanted to do it, but my guess is because millionaire tycoons are evil, I guess. Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it's not really that important. And as for the Mario Bros., well, they get involved when Luigi starts to have a relationship with Daisy, to where she later gets kidnapped by two of Koopa's henchman, Iggy and Spike. I'll get to them in a moment, but basically, they kidnap her so that they can retrieve the meteorite that she wears around her neck, which then gets the Mario Bros. involved to go into this other world to save her.

Believe me when I say that, while the story does sound simple in concept, it goes off the rails pretty quickly once Mario and Luigi delve into this other world, which basically looks like some underground city. A really cool one at that, but I'll talk more about that later. But as for the story itself, there are quite a few inconsistencies in regards to character motivation. For example, we have Spike and Iggy, who, as I said, are Koopa's henchman. And at the beginning of the film, they're portrayed as being really stupid, to which Koopa decides to fix this problem by using his de-evolving technology to somehow make them smarter. Which, OK, that's perfectly fine. But later, after the Mario Bros. capture them and demand to know where Daisy is and why Koopa wants this meteorite, they suddenly later end up being good guys for *no* reason whatsoever. And what I find funny is that, despite them sounding smarter, they're still dumb as shit. So really, it's not that much of a trade off. There's also another character named Bertha, who, at first, near the beginning portions of the film, ends up getting the meteorite from the Mario Bros. for herself. But then later, after Mario tries too woo her at a night club in order to get the meteorite away from her clutches, shortly afterwards, she helps the Mario Bros. escape from the night club from the Goombas and Lena. I don't know *why* she would do a thing like that, because, as I mentioned earlier, Bertha stole the meteorite from the Mario Bros., and now, all of a sudden, she's *helping* them? It really doesn't make any sense, and it makes me wonder if Bertha was suppose to be more of an important character in any of the previous drafts of the film.

While I'm on the subject of characters, well, I mentioned earlier that while I found the relationship between Luigi and Daisy to be cheesy as hell, I was interested to see if the film was gonna do anything with it. Well, to be honest...they really don't do much with it. It mostly gets put on the back burner as soon as Mario and Luigi enter the parallel world to rescue her. And even when they do eventually rescue her, it doesn't really amount much to anything. That being said, I will say that our characters are very likable have tons of personality to them. Part of the reason why, I believe, that's the case is because of the acting, which I'll talk about in a moment. But as for the characters themselves, there is almost never a dull moment when they're on screen. No matter whether it's the Mario Bros., King Koopa, Daisy, or even Spike and Iggy, they always have something to interesting to say and you never feel like you want them to just go away because they're unlikable or are just boring as shit. I mean, yes, Koopa is the main villain and you're suppose to not like him, but part of the reason why that doesn't work here is because of the performances given out by the actors.

In fact, let's actually about talk about one of the more of the interesting parts of the movie, which is the acting. Now as I mentioned earlier, one of the things I heard about this movie is that Hoskins and Leguizamo supposedly got drunk on set and basically just improvised a lot of their lines throughout the movie. And you can totally tell that there are scenes in this movie where that is the case. One example I can think of is when after Mario and Luigi go through the unfinished tunnels and end up in the desert, and they're just rambling on about random bullshit as they're going through the desert. I refuse to believe that scenes like those were scripted, otherwise, you wouldn't hear from either Leguizamo or Hoskins of the horrible time they had during the making of this movie. Now with that being said, I can say that the acting from them here is actually pretty good for what they were dealing with. Hoskins, in particular, is probably the best casting choice when asked to play a live action Mario. I know some people might bring up Captain Lou Albino from "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" as another mention, however, I'm not gonna count that one, personally, since his live action segments were mostly shorter and he didn't really do much other than dance. But in the case of Hoskins, he really does give it his all, even if he was supposedly drunk during filming. Same goes with Leguizamo. Admittedly, he does kinda sound one-notish for some of his scenes, however, he does give out a decent enough performance for this movie.

Which then leads me into talking about possibly one of the biggest standouts of the entire movie, which would be Dennis Hopper as King Koopa. Oh boy, where do I begin with him? Well, if I had to summarize his performance in this movie, I would describe it as bizarrely charming. See, Hopper gives out two kinds of performances in this movie: hammy and wooden. And sometimes, he'll try to combine both of these styles of performances together, and he's able to somehow make them work together. And that's really surprising to me, because normally, when you try to work in both wooden and hammy acting, it just wouldn't come off as sounding very natural. But somehow, Hopper was able to combine those two kinds of performances together and make it sound incredibly charming at the same time. Now you could possibly attribute this to him just not giving a fuck, since he also admitted that he hated working on this movie, and that very well could be a possibility. However, I still think, despite all that, he was able to try and have a little bit of fun with his performance, even if it did sound like he didn't give a shit. And as for everyone else, well, like I said, they did a pretty good job with the material that they were given. Well, possibly, anyway. I have no idea if any of the other actors, besides the main 3 that I mentioned, also had a similar experience when they were a part of the movie. But regardless, I can say that their acting was pretty good for what it was.

I want to talk about references next. Because, after all, since this movie is a very loose adaptation from the classic video game series, you would expect some kind of references in a movie like this, right? Well, yes, in a way. Now like I mentioned earlier, I knew this movie wasn't gonna be accurate to the games in any way, but I was curious to see what exactly they were gonna do, in terms of handling references. Well, all of the references don't happen until Mario and Luigi enter the parallel world, and that's where you see a lot names from Mario enemies that are regulated to billboards and signs. The most popular name you'll see is Thwomp, since that one gets the most attention, and also ends up becoming a prop for when Mario and Luigi use them as bouncing shoes, which I thought was a little bit clever. There's also a mini Bob-Bomb figure that operates like an actual wind-up toy. I also thought that one was really cute, and I personally wouldn't mind having one of those myself. Not a real Bob-Bomb, mind you, but just a replica of one. But anyways, back on topic, most of the other references are regulated to characters with the same first name. So you'll have Iggy and Spike, who are also actually Bowser's henchman from the games. Well, Spike is anyway. Iggy is actually one of the Koopa kids from the games. Which makes me wonder how this movie would've incorporated the other Koopa Kids if they had gotten away with it? But anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic here. One other one that I mentioned a couple of times before was Bertha, who is actually an enemy from Super Mario Bros. 3, AKA the big fish. So yeah, when it comes to references, I do actually like how the filmmakers were able to incorporate them into the movie in their own creative way.

Special effects are surprisingly really good. The CG, at least for 1993 standards, is really good in most areas. Now obviously, if I were dumb enough to compare the CG to today's standards, then I would say that the CG looks dated and ugly as shit. And while I will admit that a couple of the effects here look kinda terrible for 1993 standards, everything else mostly looks rather good, in terms of it's CG. The creature effects on the Goombas and the puppeteering on them also look really decent as well. Granted, I know some people might not like the look of these Goombas, considering that they look nothing like they did in the games. But really, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth. I'm more surprised by the fact that they were all able to move in their hulking giant forms despite having small heads. On that note, the costuming and makeup effects here look pretty good. The stunt work is decent for all of the car chases that happen in this movie, and there are quite a few of them here, too. The pyrotechnics are also there, too. So really, guys, for the most part, the special effects are rather good for 1993 standards. Some of them obviously don't hold up to the standards of today, but I still think it looks rather good for the time this thing came out.

Camerawork here is pretty good, although the editing in a couple of scenes is rather questionable. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Mario and Luigi help Daisy fix a water leak that was sabotaged thanks to Scapelli's men, which then gives Iggy and Spike enough time to bonk the Mario Bros. over the head to knock them out and kidnap Daisy. And on the very next cut, Mario and Luigi are *suddenly* just back up and perfectly fine as if they had never been hit to begin with. Mind you, it's a very minor edit, but it is something that you could happen to notice. There's also another scene where Koopa pretends to be a lawyer for the Mario Bros. when they first meet him. And the whole scene is rather awkward, because Mario tries to shake Koopa's hand in a greeting, but doesn't get it before sitting down. And then about half a minute later, for *some* reason, Koopa extends his hand in greeting to Mario as the plumber shakes his hand. Like...what the hell happened there? I honestly have no idea, and it gives me the impression that the scene could've also been improvised during filming since, well...you know why. But yeah, that whole scene made no fucking sense at all, and it probably would've been less awkward had the handshake happened when the Mario Bros. first met Koopa and not, like, half a minute later or something. But other than that, the camerawork here is fine, the lighting is fine, the sound-mix is actually mixed well, and the music is also really good. Granted, the movie doesn't exactly have a memorable soundtrack, but in terms of it's score, it's actually pretty catchy, especially the music that plays during the bobsledding sequence. It's really fun to listen to, and I would recommend giving it a listen to at some point if you're curious.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Super Mario Bros."? I can definitely say yes, *but* there are a couple of requirements I would recommend you follow. Number one, you have to go into it knowing that it's not gonna be accurate to any of the games whatsoever. If you're somehow looking for a direct translation from the games and it's accuracy to it, then you might as well just stick with the 2023 movie. Secondly, you have to have an appreciation for B movies. If you're looking for something that's actually good, then this movie is definitely not gonna be for you. However, if you're able to overlook those two things, then what you have is a *really* fun movie that I almost want to say knows what it wants to be, but given this film's troubled history, that would be sort of a lie. But still, I would recommend it as a goofy, stupid, cheesy B film that is not really taking itself too seriously. And for myself personally, this thing encapsulates everything I love about B movies. A story that's kind of insane and stupid, acting that isn't great but still very charming, along with cheesy dialogue and one-liners. It meets all of those requirements, and I love almost everything about this film because of that. So yeah, it definitely lives up to all of those B movies I mentioned and probably a couple of more that I forgot to add on to that growing list. And speaking of which, I'm kind of in the mood to watch another one of those movies I mentioned right now. I'm probably gonna go and watch something like "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie". I haven't seen it since I reviewed it last year, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together, and this movie will have the high honor of joining my DVD collection, because I'm definitely going to be watching it many times over.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later.