Super Mario Brothers, the Movie -- Best Thing Ever?

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Imagine, if you will. Bob Hoskins as the husky Mario, John Leguizamo as the witty and rail-like Luigi. Together, they're going to save the world. Or something.

The scene: a dance club on an alternate dimension where the 80s merged seamlessly into the 90s and the hybrid born of this unholy union was the worst of both. Imagine now, Bob Hoskins' Mario dancing with a Nell Carter lookalike in an orange dress/bodysuit adorned with neoprene spikes. Add to this the sublime soundtrack of the Divinyls covering "Love is the Drug" then fading into the horror that is Was Not Was' "Walk the Dinosaur" as our heroes are being chased by pinheaded Tyrannosauruses (or is that Tyrannosauri?). And that's only a small taste of it. Dennis Hopper (and about a gallon of hair gel) play the bad guy. Just imagine the rest.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Monday, 9 June 2003 00:15 (twenty-two years ago)

No, it's not the best thing ever.

― jm (jtm), Monday, 9 June 2003 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

it's nothing compared to the great taste of Fresca.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 9 June 2003 00:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was a bit of a mess

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 9 June 2003 01:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I dunno, but I just downloaded the Super Mario RPG for the mac-emulator and thats pretty close to the best thing ever.

― phil-two (phil-two), Monday, 9 June 2003 01:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was the best movie ever when I was 6. I haven't seen it in a long time.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 9 June 2003 01:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Such a weird movie. Don't forget Samantha Mathis yo.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 01:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw this in the theater when I was like 10 and at the time I really DID think it was the best thing ever! Subsequent viewings have somewhat dampened this view but I still can't bring myself to actually criticize it.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 9 June 2003 01:41 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought it sucked a lot

― webber (webber), Monday, 9 June 2003 07:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Pfff. Spielberg just WISHES he could make a dinosaur movie that cool.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 9 June 2003 08:01 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

why the hate?

:'(

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 28 June 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

It's just no good, that's why.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 28 June 2004 01:50 (twenty-one years ago)

When it came out, I thought it was the perfect symbol of the dramatic turn the world took as I "left childhood behind" and started college. Then Cobain died, which people seemed to like a lot better, symbol-wise. There were hardly any Super Mario Vigils.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 28 June 2004 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

There are certainly worse video game movies, but I would've done this one differently -- it explains too much. Forget the alternate/parallel world bullshit. Just pit the plumbers against the dinosaurs. Don't explain why there are both plumbers and dinosaurs. Just have them and make them jump and hide the sound effects in stings.

And why is everyone so dirty and cat-dragged in a movie based on such a brightly colored video game?

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 28 June 2004 02:06 (twenty-one years ago)

to Tep's first post:

SHEER BRILLIANCE!

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Monday, 28 June 2004 02:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw this in the cinemas. Some kids screamed out "DO THE MARIO!!!" in unison at random moments throughout the film.

p.s. there's a poster for this movie on the back cover of Endtroducing

― alanbananax, Monday, 28 June 2004 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Picked up a DVD of this for cheap (what the hell), I'd never really watched all the way through.
Best review I've found:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0905/

Things this review fails to mention:
Dennis Hopper's Koopa is an OCD germophobe, his de-evolve gun is a fucking painted SNES Super Scope.
Toad is played by MOJO NIXON.
The giant booger king re-evolves into LANCE HENRIKSON.
Breif and pointless intro narrated by DAN CASTELLANETA.
This film had THREE writers and FOUR directors.
Special cover of Was (Not Was)'s "Walk The Dinosaur" recorded for the film by "The Goombas" featuring GEORGE CLINTON.

This movie is way too fucking weird for me to even dislike it.

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

I saw it around age 9-10 and found it very poignant. Not only did these people have to live in a horrible dystopian society where you were killed for critiquing the hegemonical lizard tyrant, there was also gross fungus glop everywhere. It was a portrait of a bitter, painfully lit world with bad music. I was sure it was a vision of our future.

As far as PG-rated summer crap foisted upon kids whose parents used the movie theatre as a hopping babysitter, it gave children a lot of ideas to chew on. (ie compared to Bingo, about a cold-cream loving circus dog who escapes his glitzy sawdust nightmare to help a boy reunite his estranged parents, hell even for children whose standards are so low they find the Super Mario Bros. Movie deep and enlightening.)

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 00:59 (nineteen years ago)

Not just killed, de-evolved into a "goomba"!
(This movie would have been even weirder if that machine turned you into an actual giant walking mushroom goomba.)

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

But but but COLD CREAM.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

The dog liked to eat cold cream. How this got to be a major plot point of anything ever is best left explained by someone who likes eating cold cream, I guess.

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

It takes all kinds of fetishes. Maybe the director got off.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:41 (nineteen years ago)

Why didn't Luigi have a moustache?

― S- (sgh), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:02 (nineteen years ago)

Just an extra bonus fuck you to anyone wanting a movie actually based on the game, I guess.

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

the words of someone who's been BURNED by this movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:15 (nineteen years ago)

I like it!

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:16 (nineteen years ago)

I just realized Hopper and Leguizamo later teamed up for that other dark totalitarian weirdscape, Land of the Dead! I wonder if they spent time between zombies smoking stoags and reminiscing about their glory days as Koopa and Luigi.

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:20 (nineteen years ago)

it was kinda funny seeing how the various elements of the game were reinterpreted in movie form

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:09 (nineteen years ago)

and compared to street fighter it was a lot less insulting

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:10 (nineteen years ago)

I still haven't seen Street Fighter all the way through, or any other videogame movies.

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:14 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

when did mario become a full-blooded italian stereotype? in the movie & cartoon hes just an italian-american new york plumber but now he always-a talks-a like-a this

― and what, Thursday, 12 February 2009 15:53 (seventeen years ago)

It was in Mario 64, wasn't it?

― James Mitchell, Thursday, 12 February 2009 15:57 (seventeen years ago)

Mario Kart N64 came out in '96, and he's gone Italian in that. "I'm-a Mario, I'm a-gonna win!"

― NotEnough, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:03 (seventeen years ago)

Also has the bad guy from Hackers! I need to see this again to re-evaluate it. Yes, Dennis Hopper, one of my film gods...

Just watched Mortal Kombat for the first time since it came out and I was in middle school printing out lists of fatalities to take to the arcade later. The narrative parts of the movie border on Worst Movie Ever territory but that irresistible combination of 90s techno and CGI-enhanced kung fu fights is easily worth price of admission. The Mario movie doesn't have Johnny Cage slicing Scorpion's skull head in half with a giant medieval buzzsaw shield.

― Adam Bruneau, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:11 (seventeen years ago)

one of my university professors looked like a goomba from this film

― salsa shark, Thursday, 12 February 2009 18:47 (seventeen years ago)

the year I turned 21 I went to Vegas for New Year's with some friends but we couldn't get a hotel room and spent the whole weekend staggering around in a stupor (after 18 hrs of no sleep and non-stop Vegasness it gets pretty weird) so the only place we could think of to get some sleep was - in a MOVIE THEATER! of course - and this movie was playing. I only remember some of it.

― Courtney Love's Jew Loan Officer (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 12 February 2009 18:48 (seventeen years ago)

i did in fact love this movie as a youth; i'm afraid to watch it again lest the romance be finally pronounced dead.

― Internet is teh suck (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 12 February 2009 19:09 (seventeen years ago)

iirc Bingo was kinda awesome

― sorry, i'm not that kind of basement dweller (latebloomer), Thursday, 12 February 2009 19:15 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.horroria.com/i/nposters/01/31/13121-6A.jpg

― sorry, i'm not that kind of basement dweller (latebloomer), Thursday, 12 February 2009 19:27 (seventeen years ago)

latebloomer, why you playing me?

― i'm shy (Abbott), Thursday, 12 February 2009 19:39 (seventeen years ago)

Also has the bad guy from Hackers! I need to see this again to re-evaluate it. Yes, Dennis Hopper, one of my film gods...

Outside the Dennis Hopper as a personal film god, there are too many otms in the post for me to handle.

P.S.

Those sunglasses cost five hundred dollars!

― mehlt, Friday, 13 February 2009 01:38 (seventeen years ago)

nine years pass...

Edson claims not to recall whether he ever saw the movie, but feels he never escaped it. “When you’re involved with such a big disaster, the stench of it sort of stays with everybody,” he says. “There was work I hoped for in Hollywood, but it never really happened for me after that.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/mar/22/super-mario-bros-movie-killing-fields-chariots-fire-video-game

― DJ U OK Hun? (jed_), Thursday, 22 March 2018 04:03 (eight years ago)

three years pass...

Download or stream: a 125-minute workprint of Jankel & Morton's original cut. With 20 minutes of cut material restored by the Thief And The Cobbler restorer bloke from the only (VHS) copy ever made and comped with a retail VHS of the studio version.

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 1 June 2021 20:34 (four years ago)

oh my god

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 1 June 2021 21:02 (four years ago)

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