Super Mario Bros

In a fit of nostalgia, we really wanted to watch the Super Mario Brothers. It turns out you cannot stream it, and the only option available is to order a physical copy. It proved to be even more goofy and entertaining than my husband and I recalled, although we may have been slightly more entertained than our 30-something son. Assuming you still have a DVD player and are a fan of Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, or Dennis Hopper, you might want to add it to your collection. It’s rated PG and runs 104 minutes.

I would've actually given it 4 stars, but just for the DVD itself and not the movie. It was transferred from the VHS and thus is kind of grainy and the more expansive shots aren't quite as sharp as they should be. But here I'm just reviewing the movie itself, so that's where my focus will be.Anyone who is a fan or at least familiar with the original Super Mario Bros. games would naturally be in for a surprise when seeing this movie from 1993. Both share the same general "story" in which the plumber Mario brothers travel worlds and lands to save a princess from a Koopa monster in its tower. But that's where the surface-level similarities end. With this movie, we get a sci-fi/action/comedy involving Earth being split into two dimensions, one ruled by us, the human race, and the other by an evolved civilization of dinosaur people. Daisy (not Peach) is a girl from the dinosaur dimension but grew up in the human dimension, yet gets kidnapped back to her home dimension per orders of Koopa (Dennis Hopper), here a military dictator. He needs Daisy's crystal to help merge both dimensions so he can rule over both worlds. He has the devo guns to make it possible, weaponry that would literally de-evolve anyone who gets in his way into primates (or normal dinosaurs), and the army of Goombas (seven-foot dinos similar to stormtroopers, in that they're cool-looking if just slightly more useless) to back him up. Daisy was Luigi's romantic interest (Mario already has a girlfriend), and thus both brothers go after Daisy into the dinosaur world, into a city that's a savage, more brutal version of New York City (the movie set of which was constructed inside an abandoned cement factory and still looks kick-ass even today), and take it upon themselves to both save the girl as well as their world.This movie flopped at the box office (its release coinciding with Jurassic Park didn't help much), and it was an even lesser hit with fans of the game at the time. At a glance it appeared to be absolutely nothing like the game, instead just taking names and creating an alien story that resembled very little to the source material. Historically, it's the first film adaptation of a video game ever made in North America, but since it made such a horrible first impression, it was thus regarded as a horrible film, and thus since then forever carried the stigma of being the "worst video game movie ever." It was a popular stigma that just never went away, and those who've never seen the movie and only heard of its reputation wouldn't have thought otherwise.Believe it or not, one of the fans' biggest complaints, among other things that would've ruined the movie for them, was Mario having the signature moustache, but Luigi did not. But Mario and Luigi are supposed to have a big brother/little brother dynamic to begin with, so Mario having a moustache to make him seem older and Luigi not having to make him seem younger actually works. Also, the characters are apparently supposed to be Italian-Americans. Bob Hoskins, who plays Mario, is natively a Brit, but he dons a convincing Brooklyn accent that makes it easier to suspend disbelief. However, John Leguizamo, who plays Luigi, is still clearly a Latino, a different ethnicity from Mario. But there is a double-date dinner scene where it was implied that Luigi was actually adopted into Mario's family, so while they are brothers to each other, Luigi also looks up to Mario as a father figure. As far as story setup goes before we launch into the inter-dimensional journey, it's definitely a short one, but they somehow make each and every moment count in establishing who Mario and Luigi are, what they mean to each other as family, and we're already rooting for them as they go on their adventure and along for the ride. Same thing with the dinosaur world. As the movie keeps its story rolling, we only get to see snippets here and there of the dinosaur peoples' city life, but even those snippets are still telling as long as you notice them (better yet on repeat viewings). For example, if you were to get run over by one of the electric cars and your body gets stuck on the hood, your body would get left there to rot into a skeleton. A very intriguing world in a darkly humorous way.One last thing--it would be wrong to say that the movie is absolutely nothing like the games. It actually takes names, characters, objects, and elements from the games and incorporates them into the movie's story in often subtle and clever ways, some more so than others. In the game, Mario is able to jump great distances. In the movie, Stomper boots enable him this ability. In the game, Mario hurls fireballs. In the movie, there are flame-throwers that shoot fireballs. Although Yoshi was more of an iguana in the games, in the movie he's a pygmy T-Rex (which also still looks awesome even today), yet both versions still have that whip-like tongue. In both the games and the movie, Mario and Koopa face off on a bridge, and Koopa winds up inside a floating tub-thing far out of Mario's reach.Over time and to this day, Super Mario Bros. has a developed cult fanbase--of which I'm a part of--that see it as an underappreciated and misunderstood film. If you ask me, for its story and all its elements, it's very imaginative and inventive, along similar lines of Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice, a kind of entertainment that personally appeals to me. Sure it has its flaws, but even those are part of the movie's charm for the time it came out. Behind the scenes, the production was chaotic and stressing due to a variety of factors, and the actors were waiting for all of it to be over (the two stars repeatedly took shots between takes just to get through the shoot). Despite that, the actors still gave it their all, so for as wild and crazy as the movie gets, it's incredibly well-acted, and it's amazing how well put together the movie became in the end.The best thing they can do is give this movie a proper, sharper DVD release, and if they can do that, they should consider a Blu-Ray release for its fans. Until then, this is the best we can get. When the movie is exciting, it's exciting. When it's intriguing, it's intriguing. When it's funny (and it definitely is), it's funny. And when it's fun, it's just plain good ole' fun for what it is and what it was meant to be.

Nostalgic childhood cult classic can't wait for my kids to watch it live it brings back good old memories in great shape amazing product

You read that right: I think that this film is good, and not in a "so bad it's good" type of way. Anyway, I got this for somebody for Christmas, but I've watched it more than enough times to review it.For starters, I don't think it's the worst conceivable implementation of the Super Mario Bros. universe. Think about it: In the original Mario Bros. arcade game, Mario and Luigi are plumbers from New York. What are they in this film? Plumbers from New York! Imagine that. The films tries to do something that Nintendo has never even attempted in reconciling Mario Bros. with Super Mario Bros. (Yes, I know that Yoshi's Island makes the film's idea impossible, but that game wasn't out when this movie released.). Also, they went as far to include Paulina and Daisy, and they spent a few seconds building up Princess Toadstool as this great leader. There's a lot of fan service in the movie, despite some of the (valid) problems Mario fans find with it.I see where people are coming from by hating some of the design choices in this film. King Koopa, Goombas, and Iggy are not human beings. There's nothing in Mario that would imply that they are. I don't know why they didn't at least have King Koopa transform into a dragon or something. But these are small things when you consider the larger film.The reason I like this movie is because the ideas in the story are fairly interesting. There's good trope use. At the beginning of the film, they establish the unborn Daisy as a sort of "child of destiny" by handing her egg off to some nuns. The nuns, of course, believe the child is from God (as opposed to being from otherworldly dinosaur men). You never expected to see something like that out of a Mario film, eh? But it's gets even better as it tells more about how Daisy has always felt "drawn" to dinosaurs, then establishes this alternate world where dinosaurs still reign supreme. I could elaborate more, but I don't want to spoil too much of the story for those who haven't seen it.You have to wonder if David Icke watched this movie and thought, "Sounds real to me!" and came up with his Reptilian theories. Watching this movie from that perspective creates a whole new level of entertainment value for it.Anyway, I think this film is unjustly despised. It's not my favorite movie ever, but I really do love it.

I watched this when I was a kid and it was silly and a lot of fun. I bought the new Mario bros movie for my kids and it was a hit, and a miss for the other. Let me start by saying the 2023 mbm is great, lots of colors, moves like a video game , lots of stimulation. One of my kids loved it because of this. My neuro divergent kid, got 1/3 of the way through and was burned out and finished watching. So. That was the reason I got this classic version. Not so bright, (even though it was made in a time when brightness was the fashion), lots of action but not video game fast, and it's a live action, so people move at people speed. Both kids loved this version just as much and the 2023 version. But with this one, my neuro-spicy unicorn-dragon can make it through the whole movie and not have a meltdown. He enjoys looking at the costumes and the retro detail as well as the gross slime that shows up in some areas. Great movie. Highly recommend for the whole family.