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Super Mario Bros. — The Movie!

Here's my extremely scatterbrained review of Super Mario Bros., the 1993 film that took more than a few liberties with its video game subject matter. Here's a surprise: I absolutely did not hate this movie. It's ridiculous and stupid, but it's got a lot going on, and some of it really works. Maybe it's just that it's so unbelievably different from any other movie I've seen. Maybe it's just the Bob-ombs. The review is more an exercise in throwing a bunch of random shit at the html wall to try to convey the broad, silly themes of the film. In other words, it's all over the place. Still, if you've never seen the Bob Hoskins version of Mario, I'd recommend a viewing.

Posted by Matt on 06/23/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 260 comments

Scenery-wise, the movie rules. I love the way they desperatly tried to squeeze every litte Mario reference they could think of. Like the way they designed the hallways so it would look like the koopa castle?
Im a sucker for the shameless super-scope plug in the end too…

Chestnuts roasted by Pupin @ 06/23/2004 9:11 PM

o i forgot not only does the movie not follow the plot of any of the games it messes up one of the names, daisy isn not the princess of the mushroom kingdom, she is the princess of saharaland from the gameboy game,peach is the princess of the MK, but in a game where all the Koopa Kids are idiots and not at all kids, i guess we can let this one slide.

Chestnuts roasted by afroken @ 06/23/2004 9:11 PM

There were a few other NES in-jokes I didn’t mention, so if you’re interested in those, def check out the flick. Nothing much…a few character names, props, sounds and whatnot.

Oh, to whomever said it above — yes, video game flicks aren’t as bad as most make ‘em out to be. Well, they are, but I’ve always enjoyed ‘em. Hell, even Double Dragon was entertaining. And I love the MK flicks. Wizard, obviously. Street Fighter…hmm, lemme watch it again and get back to you.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 06/23/2004 9:15 PM

I still haven’t seen this movie yet, but now you’ve got me intrigued enough to go out and find it! :)

Chestnuts roasted by Mandie J. @ 06/23/2004 9:20 PM

Coleman Francis is the MAN.

Flag on the Moon. How did it get there?

Chestnuts roasted by Piscez @ 06/23/2004 9:37 PM

My parents rented this film when it first came out on video, and my opinion then and now generally fits Matt’s. It’s not anything like the actual "Mario Brothers" games…but, to its credit, it’s not anything like any other movie out there, either. If you enjoy the truly strange and weird and don’t mind having the song "Walk The Dinosaur" stuck in your head for days after seing it, look this movie up. As Matt mentioned, it’s not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests (I actually liked Yoshi here and thought Bob Hoskins and John Leguziamo were quite good in the title roles)…just very, very odd.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 06/23/2004 9:39 PM

Terrible, terrible movie. I have yet to watch it the whole way through. Ranks right up there with Double Dragon with its "Oh, we’re so powerful in our shitty little rhinestone covered outfits" shtick.

Chestnuts roasted by Number5 @ 06/23/2004 9:54 PM

Movies after video games are never that good, exception "Resident Evil" was alright for a movie. "Mario Brothers" a crappy movie.

Chestnuts roasted by Caylor @ 06/23/2004 9:56 PM

Here’s an interesting little tidbit: Birg Bertha has a thing for Mario? In the Comics too. The Valient comics put out in 1990 and around then had several shorrt stories that evolved around Mario getting accosted by Big Bertha (who was in love with him when she thought he was a Frog in the frog suit) and Bertha’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Stanley the Talking Fish. On a weirder note… Stanley was in love with Wendy O’ Koopa! O_o And the end of one story had Mario take Wendy out for drinks after they fended off the fishy couple… Odd.

Chestnuts roasted by Blaine @ 06/23/2004 9:58 PM

And to think, when I saw this in the theatre, people were getting up and clapping at the end of it… in retrospect, I guess they were happy that it was over.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate-o-mac @ 06/23/2004 10:10 PM

I’ve seen bits and parts of this movie…it was quite amusing. It could have been better, but how can you effectively translate a movie out of a game that consists of jumping, breaking blocks, stomping monsters, shooting fireballs and collecting coins?

I heard they were thinking of making a Metroid movie….interesting to see whoever actress playing Samus morph into a little ball…

Chestnuts roasted by The Dragon @ 06/23/2004 10:19 PM

Matt-I’m surprised I never suggested that you do a review of this movie before. Good work.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 06/23/2004 10:20 PM

I recently got the DVD for that movie, but only ’cause it was the cheapest Nintendo-themed DVD in the store. I would’ve bought one of the "Pokemon: Adventures in the Orange Islands" DVDs, but I’m thinking maybe there are cheaper prices for DVDs with 12 episodes on them. (At least that’s better than wasting $15 on only 3 episodes!) I’m personally hoping they’ll give "The Wizard" a special-edition DVD release.
BTW, Blaine had a point about the comic book character Big Bertha seems to be based upon. She appeared in two stories, "Love Flounders" and "Fins and Roses", both of which were reprinted in "The Best of the Super Mario Bros."

Chestnuts roasted by Kacy @ 06/23/2004 10:21 PM

Haven’t seen this movie in quite a while. I had (and may still have) the storybook that went along with it. Yeah. Moving on, I guess if I looked at it with new eyes I could forgive the bad taste it left in my mouth.

But there is no forgiving Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Chestnuts roasted by Frostor @ 06/23/2004 10:31 PM

Matt, when you said you expected Seymore to pop out of a sewer, did you actually mean Audrey II? Were you possibly making a Little Shop of Horrors ref? I think someone needs to watch Little Shop again and do a review… And if the fates were in my favor you’d also watch the original one from 1960, Directed by the god that is Roger Corman, and maybe you could compare Jack Nickolson’s Dental Patient to Bill Murry’s… but then I may be asking for too much.

Chestnuts roasted by Trippy the 8th Dwarf @ 06/23/2004 10:42 PM

Almost bought the original LSOH today. Never saw it. Thoughts?

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 06/23/2004 10:44 PM

I don’t know if anyone else posted this but I thought you would like to know… if you read these that is. The "Big Mystery Woman" is in face the loveable Big Bertha. Just thought you’d like to know. <3

Chestnuts roasted by q @ 06/23/2004 10:53 PM

i saw that movie alot(sad to say)but it’s so bad that it’s good. did anyone notice the product placement reebok did for that movie? on the scene were the bob-omb is walking upside down and is underneath koopa, if you look on the bottom of the bob-ombs shoes you can see reebok on them. did you see that one matt?

Chestnuts roasted by Westside_Paintballa @ 06/23/2004 11:16 PM

Wasn’t one of the crimales that got de-evoled named Toad???

Chestnuts roasted by Death Drop @ 06/23/2004 11:32 PM

The origonal LSOH is a fairly weird little number. It’s easy to consume though, pretty short.

Chestnuts roasted by Grey Weirdo @ 06/23/2004 11:49 PM

Were Captain Lou Albano and that other guy to busy to do this? They look a heck of a lot more like the characters than Bob and John.

Am I the only one that thinks that the Goomba’s look scarier than any of the Ghoulies?

The 1986 musical LSOH is one of my favortie films of all time. I even bought the soundtrack. HBO seems to be playing it alot lately. It’s awesome.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 06/24/2004 12:06 PM

you should look up mojo nixon…he played the character named "toad" (if my memory serves properly; or at least the guy in the cage with the harmonica…).
if that doesn’t scream cult classic, nothing else does.

p.s. mojo nixon was immortalized in the dead milkmen song "punk rock girl"

Chestnuts roasted by Ryan @ 06/24/2004 12:30 PM

I distinctly remember seeing this movie in the theater and thinking it was cool, and wondering why everyone ragged on it so bad. It’s pretty clear now.

I know for a fact we talked about the LSOH original here in the blog, not that long ago. I think it was when you were out of town, but Google yields no results. If you’re a big enough fan of the musical version and Nicholson to sit through some pretty dry parts, it’s worth watching. There’s a pretty good payoff at the end, too.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 06/24/2004 1:00 AM

I actually relly liked the flic. I liked it that they made it darker. Geez as much as you can’t honestly identify it as "creative freedom" they certainly were being creative. I think games should be made into darker themed movies more often.

Chestnuts roasted by Zee Kay @ 06/24/2004 1:16 AM

you people that liked this movie sicken and disgust me. In all fairness I never saw it.

Chestnuts roasted by czvbzvb @ 06/24/2004 1:21 AM

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2004 at 6:41 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.