SUPER MARIO BROTHERS:We started with the arguable creative apex of the VGMRP, and we continue with the arguable creative nadir of video game movies, SUPER MARIO BROTHERS. It begins with some random guy in a Brooklyn accent narrating:
"A long long time ago, the Earth was ruled by dinosaurs. They were big, so not a lot of people went around hassing 'em. Actually, no people went around hassling 'em cuz there weren't any people yet. Just the first tiny mammals. Basically, life was good. Then something happened: a giant meteorite struck the Earth. Goodbye dinosaurs! But what if the dinosaurs weren't all destroyed? What if the impact of that meteor created a parallel dimension where the dinosaurs continued to thrive and evolve into intelligent, vicious, and aggressive beings... just like us? And hey, what if they found a way back? "
That's a lot of prologue to chew on, it might be the prologue of a quirky, fun movie. The problem is, it is immediately followed by the title card: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS.
And now, you know you are screwed.
Why? Because you know that the people behind this movie have no idea what the game is actually about. Making a movie out of the actual game of SMB may or may not be a good idea- most likely not a good idea, because if you DID make a true-to-game movie, it would look like this:
Drawn by that guy who does awesome work at www.drmcninja.com
That is an awesome drawing, but what makes the drawing work is what would make a live action movie fail. When you actually think about what happens in SMB, it's kind of insane. Maybe it works in a cartoon world, but real actors fighting real talking mushrooms with fireballs magically coming out of their hands? Mama Mia, you better hope there's some whiskey in that movie popcorn you're eating.
Luckily (or unluckily), the makers of this movie dodged the issue by producing the first film based on a video game which has almost nothing to do with the game they based it on. Yeah, it's got Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo), and yeah they're plumbers who get sucked down a drain into another world. But once they go down the pipes, the world they encounter looks less like this:
Yay!
and more like this:
Uh.... what?
Not only is the movie inexplicable to casual movie-goers and parents who were dragged in by their children, but it's incoherent to fans. I grew up on Super Mario Brothers, and I have no fucking clue what is going on in this movie. Neither do the actors, as scene after scene seems to involve miserable human beings trying to explain to each other what the hell is going on. In other words, it is basically a documentary of notable actors trapped on a production from hell.
The plot is some nonsense about a de-evolving machine, a meteorite that can merge two worlds, an entire civilization that's descended from the dinosaurs, an ugly metropolis called Dino-Hattan and a king who was turned into a giant, city-wide piece of fungus. You know, just like the popular video game, Super Mario Brothers.
The only thing that feels accurate (unfortunately) is the ridiculous stereotyping of the Mario Brothers themselves, who at times sound like they are refugees from a sketch on The State:
Mario Mario: This can't be Manhattan.
Luigi Mario: I don't know, I haven't been to Manhattan in a couple weeks.
Mario Mario: Must have been a bad couple of weeks!
See? Just like all Brooklyn Plumbers, they hate everything that's not Italian and not Brooklyn. Another classic piece of dialogue:
Mario: Mama Mia!
Luigi: Pasta Fagoli!
Mario: Brooklyn Dodgers!
Both: Aeeeeeyyyyy!!!
The actors deal with this mess in their own ways: Bob Hoskins can barely conceal his contempt for the production, John Leguizamo looks excited to be in a movie, and Dennis Hopper (playing Koopa like a jerky CEO of a cigarette company) looks like he snorted some glue before each take.
And why not? According to the IMDB trivia page, the script was being rewritten each day, to the point that no one was paying attention anymore. Inexplicable scenes include a slow dance of goombas in an elevator, Dennis Hopper making strange demands about pizza at his moment of triumph, a six foot bouncer named Big Bertha (who looks like the demon love child of Grace Jones and Aretha Franklin) and my favorite bizarre trend, random cars smashing into each other for no reason. Seriously: there is a car chase in this movie, but cars seem to crash into each other whether the Mario Brothers are being chased or not. In fact, during the car sequence, a car flies onscreen and collides with a pile of garbage and IT WASN'T EVEN RUN OFF THE ROAD. It just blows up on principle.
It's only off-topic fan service that makes this movie have anything to do with the game... character names, vague references, sound cues, etc. It's as if they bought a script and changed the names; meaning that the fans aren't happy (and they weren't) and no one else cares enough to watch it (they didn't). The movie might have worked on its own terms, without any of the video game trappings, it's just weird enough. But what this means is that there is still a Mario Brothers movie that could be made that's actually about the game world that was created. For my part, I hope we never get to see "Super Mario Begins", if only because out of all the game worlds to make into a filmed story, the Mario universe is the most lacking. Mario's adventures are light fun on your Nintendo, but there's no depth or consistency to the world that merits further exploration.
While crass commercialism was the impetus behind this monstrosity, and the final result pleased no one, one must be fair. This movie is not the result of lazy hackery. The film's 2 directors, and a team of production designers, put a lot of time and effort into creating a new world out of whole cloth. I say this in the lightest of defenses, because the world they have created is hideous and bizarre. It's like Blade Runner as rendered by L. Ron Hubbard. They try so hard, yet they fail even harder.
SUPER MARIO BROTHERS plays like a fever dream, or a nightmare that's not so much scary as it is plain weird. I can't recommend it and I couldn't tell you when I'd ever want to watch it again, but I won't quickly forget it. Also, if I remember Mortal Kombat: Annihilation correctly, I've know what the bottom of the barrel looks like, and we're not there yet.
RATING: * (out of 5)
P.S. This is the first well meaning, horribly misconceived sci-fi project to feature the song "Love is the Drug" played in a nightmarish bar/dance sequence. The other was "Monkeybone." Noodle that one for awhile.P.P.S. For a treasury of hilarious tidbits, check out the movie's IMDB trivia page, where I learned (among other things) that Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo would often drink to get through each day of filming. http://www.imdb.com/title/
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