It isn't very often on this blog that I get to watch things I actually like, sure there are some happy surprises and I haven't hated everything I've covered here but generally, my blog film list and my own interests don't tend to crossover very often. However this week, or rather next Monday; 13th, will mark thirty six years since Super Mario Bros the video game - potentially one of the most recognizable and famous video games in video game history was first released in Japan. It's legendary status cannot be emphasized enough and it undoubtedly earns a place amongst conversations about the greatest video games of all time. And in the early 90's, Nintendo of America and a Production Company called Lightmotive thought it would be a really good idea to make a movie about it... And it was a complete failure. At least at the time but the movie has since gone on to garner something of a cult following and in June last year Restorationist Garrett Gilchrist and members of The Super Mario Bros. (Movie) Archive released a restored, extended cut of the movie painstakingly pieced together using VHS footage, called "The Morton Jankel Cut" with some 20 minutes of previously unseen content spliced into the movie and you can obtain it for yourselves by clicking this bit of text. This will be the version I'm covering in this post.
Fresh after missing out on a lucrative plumbing job at a restaurant, Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) cross paths with Archaeologist, Daisy (Samantha Mathis) who is having some trouble at a dig site underneath Brooklyn Bridge from site owner Anthony Scapelli (Gianni Russo), a "Businessman" who owns a construction company working onsite and just so happens to also own a rival plumbing company... despite her troubles Daisy agrees to a date with Luigi and at a meal with Mario and his girlfriend Daniella (Dana Kaminski) we learn that both Daisy and Luigi were orphans. After the meal, Mario and Daniella are spotted leaving by Iggy (Fisher Stevens) and Spike (Richard Edson) who are looking for Daisy and believing Daniella to be Daisy in disguise, kidnap her. Meanwhile Daisy and Luigi visit the dig site and accidentally stumble upon Scapelli's plumbers vandalising and waterlogging the site, calling in Mario they manage to bring the leak under control but are then jumped by Spike and Iggy who, realising that Daniella is the wrong girl, kidnap Daisy. Following her cries for help, the Mario brothers track her to a wall of solid rock, but seeing her face burst through the rock and frantically snatching at her only to grab her necklace, jump at the wall and are transported to an alternative dimension! Chasing down Spike and Iggy with Daisy, the brothers eventually lose them but discover that they are in Dinohatten... a really weird town... Here President Koopa (Dennis Hopper) is in charge, and a descendant from dinosaurs along with everybody else, despite them all looking human... that were pushed into an alternative dimension 65 million years ago when a meteorite struck. Koopa is searching for Daisy, but more specifically a fragment of the meteorite Daisy wore round her neck in hopes to re-energise the meteorite and merge the alternative dimension with Earth, but that meteorite fragment is currently in the hands of the brothers, or at least it was until some big lady in a red leather jacket (later named Big Bertha) stole it... and before they can retrieve it, the boys are arrested along with a guitarist and street musician named Toad (Mojo Nixon). In prison they learn from Toad that they are in a parallel dimension and are visited by Koopa, demanding they hand over the meteorite fragment but when they aren't able to, Koopa takes them to the de-volution chamber where Toad is turned into one of the tiny lizard headed Goombas (which are... genuinely terrifying). However, the brothers manage to break free and force Koopa into the machine, setting it to "Jurassic" and although Koopa emerges unchanged it is clear something is different about him... meanwhile after giving the police a slip, Mario and Luigi drive their commandeered police car into a tunnel emerging into a sheer drop on the other side and are only kept alive by a mysterious fungus wrapping itself around the car stopping them from hitting the bottom... meanwhile Koopa sends Lena (Fiona Shaw) to retrieve Daisy from her holding cell and we learn that Daisy was smuggled out of the dimension by her mother who died and her Father who disappeared, and Koopa uses the de-volution chamber to make Spike and Iggy hundreds of times more intelligent, before sending them to the desert to find the Mario brothers. At the palace Koopa and Daisy finally meet where Koopa introduces Yoshi - a dinosaur as a pet of the royal family (so cool!) but when Daisy rejects Koopa's advances he sends her away. In the desert, the Mario's and Spike & Iggy come to an agreement that they will handover the meteorite in exchange for Daisy if Spike & Iggy will help them retrieve it from Big Bertha. They four go to a nightclub where they find Big Bertha dancing, and after Mario manages to win her over with his charm, the 2 have a dance giving Mario the opportunity to take the necklace back, but when Lena bursts in to the club with 2 Goomba's, they lose the necklace but are saved from capture by Big Bertha, and hitch a ride to Koopa tower in waste truck, with the fungus gifting Luigi with a strange clockwork bomb (it's a bob-omb!). Meanwhile, at the palace we learn that the fungus is in fact the former King, reduced to fungus by Koopa who calls the place: the mushroom kingdom (get it?) and inside, Lena, now in possession of the meteorite visits Daisy and attempts to kill her but Daisy is saved by Yoshi and manages to escape. Daisy runs into Spike and Iggy, who are being led away by Koopa's on Lena's orders and after a distraction by the Koopa that used to be Toad, the 3 are able to escape and Spike and Iggy lead Daisy to the fungus telling her it used to be her father but was Koopa's first victim of the de-volution chamber, making her Princess Daisy. From there she sets Yoshi free, and gets in touch with Mario and Luigi leading them to her, but all is being eavesdropped on by Koopa... Reunited with Daisy, the brothers are introduced to the fungus, and suddenly remembering Daniella, Mario races off to go find her, just as Luigi and Daisy follow they are captured by Koopa and the Goombas, Koopa by now realising that Lena has the meteorite fragment and is preparing to use it... Koopa dispatches the police to capture Lena, take the meteorite fragment, and deliver it back to him, which they do, meanwhile Mario catches up with Daniella and rescues her and the other prisoners from the Goombas, fleeing down a big pipe, because Mario. Koopa prepares to use the fragment, leading the captured Luigi and Daisy to the desert, but Mario and the girls coincidently crash straight out of the pipe and straight into them, technically rescuing Luigi and Daisy in the process! Ascending in some kind of... really big bucket strapped to chains... Koopa proclaims he will use the meteorite and merge the dimensions and begins to attack to attack everyone with a flamethrower... Mario; using the fungus swings onto the bucket and advances upwards, meanwhile Lena reappears and is in just the right place to catch the meteorite when Koopa, attacked by Mario, drops it. Luigi, Daisy and the other girls give chase but they are not able to stop her, and plunging the fragment into the meteorite she is killed and fossilized instantly! Meanwhile Koopa gives chase to Mario, believing him to have the meteorite and when they finally meet at the crossing, Mario pulls out the bob-omb and begins winding it... but it falls down a gap and tumbles away. Just when Koopa finally has Mario, the 2 begin to dissolve to nothing as the meteorite begins to merge the 2 dimensions! Meanwhile back in the cave, Luigi helps the girls escape back through the portal, and with Daisy tries to remove the fragment from the meteorite but it's too powerful to overcome. Back on Earth, the girls are being interviewed by the media and the police at the construction site when Koopa and the Goombas emerge with Mario, and Koopa uses a De-volution gun to turn Scapelli into a chimpanzee... but back in the other dimension, using tools; Luigi and Daisy are able to dislodge the fragment, sending Mario, Koopa and the Goombas all back. Emerging back in Dinohatten, Koopa goes crazy, attacking the brothers, but when Goomba Toad throws them de-volution rays, they are able to distract Koopa long enough until the bob-omb finds itself just underneath his feet, exploding and sending him flying back into that swinging bucket thing. Finally, finishing him off for good, the brothers use the guns to reduce Koopa to nothing but primordial ooze and the whole town celebrates, with the King re-animated back to normal. Using the meteorite fragment, Daisy creates a portal to send the brothers back but tells Luigi she can't leave, and the pair exchange a kiss before the brothers travel home. Three weeks later Daisy rocks up at the brothers apartment, loaded with guns and the trio flee off again on a new adventure!
I swear, every week, my plot rundowns get longer! Sorry for the continuous walls of text... but anyway, I thought this was a pretty decent film! It was crammed with references to the video game, obviously, but most of them, despite being really obvious, I felt were done well! I think the feeling at the time was that they detracted from the movie, but I didn't feel that way at all. They were so obvious but there was no illusion; going into this it was a video game adaption, it was to be expected! So I don't buy that criticism. Although the whole; rescuing Daisy thing, and the Princess being called Daisy as opposed to Peach was a disappointment for me. I know Daisy was the Princess from Super Mario Land, which was the main influence on the movie, but Peach is the more recognizable character (and my OG on any Mario Kart version!) so they should have gone with Peach in retrospect.
That's only a minor crit though, and spoiler alert; I don't have many others. I thought the acting here was pretty great, if not maybe a bit over the top at times, but in the context of it being a family friendly adventure film I didn't spoil it for me. There was real good chemistry between the brothers played by Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo respectively and they bounced off each other well. Similarly there was good chemistry between Fisher Stevens and Richard Edson as Iggy and Spike respectively and I thought they were really great. I was getting strong Donald Trump vibes from Dennis Hopper as Koopa and he was also really good and Samantha Mathis was anything but the stereotypical damsel in distress as Daisy. I might have preferred her to be named Peach, but other than that she was so good and a strong female lead.
