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Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Daniel's Review
Take everything out that you know about the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ games. Get rid of the Mushroom Kingdom, say goodbye to coin collecting, and how come Princess Peach isn’t in the movie at all? Well, it’s okay, because we have Princess Daisy (everybody’s real favourite Mario princess). Add in a city ruled by humanoid dinosaurs? Include interdimensional travelling, and have I forgot something? Oh yeah, that’s right, don’t forget about everybody’s favourite obstacle from the games, the fungus.
The result is the 1993 live-action film version of ‘Super Mario Bros.’. A movie that has made me to include Big Bertha as a ‘Mario Kart’/’Super Smash Bros.’ character, because she’s the real Mario character that the games need.
So what’s the film about, well it’s about Bowser (a.k.a. Koopa) kidnapping Princess Daisy, a big of a twist from the original games whereas Peach also got kidnapped from Bowser. But in all seriousness, the film is about a land filled with dinosaurs, whereas a long time ago, a meteor hits the Earth “Goodbye Dinosaurs” (a line from the narrator). But apparently, the meteor only killed a handful of dinosaurs among impact, and the lucky survivors created another dimension where a city was created, populated by humanoid dinosaurs. I’m not drunk, that’s the first two minutes of the movie. So time jumping 20 years earlier, I guess in our time, a baby gets placed in front of an Orphanage, where the baby is literally born out of an egg, who wears a necklace that has a part of the meteor, the same meteor that hit the Earth and created another dimension. Time jumping again to “Now”, we see Mario and Luigi are Brooklyn’s popular plumbing service called Mario Bros., but when Daisy gets kidnapped, it’s up to the Mario Bros. to save the day.
I don’t know where to begin with this movie, the characters are not themselves, with the exception of Yoshi being a dinosaur. I’m surprised he isn’t a human son of Mario’s. Toad is a singer, Koopa is a lizard, Mario and Luigi are wearing the opposite colours, until the last act of the movie. It’s like the filmmakers only knew about the characters names, and decide let’s make a movie about the hottest videogame series of the time ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and see the cash come in without even trying to be like the games. If this movie was titled Plumber Brothers vs. the City, then I might find little enjoyment out of this movie, but the fact the name ‘Super Mario Bros.’ is the film’s official name, which looks nothing like the game, makes this film hard to watch.
Bob Hoskins tries, but even with the cast trying, the film has faults and plot holes abound, with little to no character development whatsoever. Daisy is probably the character that gets fleshed out the most. And there's a granny with a gun!
This movie should have been like 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' where it makes the audience feel like they are watching a film, that acts like a videogame.
This is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, with no fun, light on story and campy visuals, ‘Super Mario Bros.’ fails at all levels (figuratively and literally).
Can't wait for that sequel.
Score: 0.3/10
Published: October 2nd, 2015
Details
Review
Release Date: June 10th, 1993
Studio: Pathé
Runtime: 104 mins
Rated: PG
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Rob's Review
‘Super Mario Bros.’ is a 1993 adaptation of the 1983 game of the same name was directed by Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel and stars Bob Hoskins as ‘Mario’ and John Leguizamo as ‘Luigi’.
Basically the movie goes something like this, Princess Daisy (who doesn’t know she is a princess) (where is Peach?) gets kidnapped by King Koopa (Bowser) and transported to another dimension where the dinosaurs evolved into human like beings and it’s up to dead beat, out of work plumbers, Mario and Luigi to save her.
Before I get into the stuff I did not like about this film and trust me there is a bit I am going to talk about the stuff I did like.
The acting done by not only Bob Hoskins (Mario) and Dennis Hopper (Koopa) was something I give a lot of credit too, considering the movie has a lot of things wrong with it script and story wise. They both made me feel like Mario was the good guy and King Koopa was somebody not to be messed with.
Similarly another aspect I liked about this movie is the SFX giving the year this movie was made and the small budget they had the visuals are not that bad.
Now the things I didn’t like is the story, while I did not have an issue with the Mario Bros. saving princess Daisy, which was pretty much the whole story line, what I did have an issue with is the inconsistent story telling throughout the movie, things just randomly happen with no apparent reason. Parts of the story that just did not add up at all, and pipe leaks so large that not even the real Mario Bros. could fix.
The soundtrack, there was 2 songs, I’m not even making that up, there was a song at the end, and one main song played throughout the entire movie whenever Mario or Luigi did something, and they did a bit of it.
They called this movie ‘Super Mario Bros.’ for 75% of the movie, Mario was wearing green, and Luigi was wearing red, perhaps someone in wardrobe was colour blind, because that just didn’t do it for me. The other 25% there where their correct colours, how you ask? Well Mario just happens to find clothes in a sewer that fit both him and his brother.
Do not get me wrong, this movie has some issues but I had fun, watching it, I laughed at some of the jokes at the start of the movie, and towards the end, it just got weirder so I laughed then too.
This movie has some issues but I enjoyed watching it with its plot holes and lazy storytelling, I’m a little bit disappointed that it’s not getting a sequel.
Score: 5/10