Super Mario Bros. (film)

Super Mario Bros.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rocky Morton Annabel Jankel Dean Semler (uncredited)
Produced by	Jake Eberts Roland Joffé
Written by	Parker Bennett Terry Runte Ed Solomon
Narrated by	Dan Castellaneta
Starring	Bob Hoskins John Leguizamo Dennis Hopper Samantha Mathis
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Editing by	Mark Goldblatt
Studio	Cinergi Pictures Allied Filmmakers Lightmotive
Distributed by	Hollywood Pictures
Release date(s)	May 28, 1993 (1993-05-28)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$48 million[1]
Box office	US$20,915,465[1]

Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 American^[2] action film directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Based on the Super Mario Bros.video game and its entire franchise, the film features Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Samantha Mathis. It tells the story of the Mario brothers, Mario and Luigi, as they find a parallel universe, where King Koopa is a dictator. They have to rescue Princess Daisy and stop Koopa from attempting to merge the dimensions so that he could become a dictator of both worlds.

Super Mario Bros. was released on May 28, 1993, and received mainly negative reviews. It was a box office bomb, recouping only $21 million of its $48 million budget.^[1] Despite this, the film was nominated for two Saturn Awards (one for Best Costume, the other for Best Make-up). It received a minor re-release in early 2010.^[3]

Plot

Mario and Luigi are two Italian American plumbers living in Brooklyn, New York. The brothers are being driven out of business by the mafia-like Scapelli Construction Company, led by contractor Anthony Scapelli. Mario is the elder of the two brothers, being close to the late 30's, and Luigi is in his mid 20's. Luigi falls in love with an orphaned NYU student, Daisy, who is digging under the Brooklyn Bridge for dinosaur bones. After a date, she takes Luigi to the dig and witnesses Scapelli's men (who, along with Scapelli himself, had previously threatened her to end her research on that specific piece of land for their own interests) sabotage it by leaving the water-pipes open. Luigi tries to stop it but he does not have his tools on him so he can not fix it. They rush back to his apartment where they inform Mario about the incident. The three go back to the flooding and the brothers manage to fix it but are knocked out by two strange characters, Iggy and Spike. The two crooks kidnap Daisy.

Mario and Luigi awaken a minute later and head deeper into the caves following Daisy's screams and discover an interdimensional portal through which Mario and Luigi follow Daisy. They find themselves in a strange dystopian parallel world where a human-like race evolved from dinosaurs rather than the mammalian ancestry of true humans. Sixty-five million years ago, a meteorite crashed into the Earth and in doing so ripped the universe into two parallel dimensions. All the surviving dinosaurs of the time crossed over into this new realm. Iggy and Spike turn out to be henchmen (and cousins) of the other world's germophobic and obsessive dictator, King Koopa, descended from the T-Rex. However, the two have failed to also bring Daisy's rock, a meteorite fragment which Koopa is trying to get in order to merge his world with the real world that separated from Koopa's world during the meteor strike. It turns out that Daisy is the Princess of the other dimension but when Koopa overthrew Daisy's father (and turned him into fungus), Daisy's mother took her to New York using the inter-dimensional portal. The portal was then destroyed, killing Daisy's mother in the process, but when Scapelli was blasting at the cave, the portal was reopened. When Koopa hears about the re-opening of the portal, he sends Spike and Iggy to find Daisy and the rock to merge the dimensions and make Koopa dictator of both worlds. Spike and Iggy, however, who had grown more intelligent after being subjected to one of Koopa's experiments, decide to turn on Koopa and join forces with Mario and Luigi. Koopa thinks only Daisy can merge the worlds, but Mario and Luigi were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Daisy is eventually rescued by the plumbers.

Eventually, the two worlds merge, during which Scapelli gets his comeuppance when Koopa devolves him into a primate by mistake while aiming for Mario, but Luigi and Daisy take back the rock and the worlds separate. Mario gains his courage and fights Koopa and eventually wins when he and Luigi devolve him, transforming him into a ferocious, semi-humanoid Tyrannosaurus. Koopa then leaps out for a last attack but Mario and Luigi devolve him into primeval slime, destroying him. Daisy's father turns back to normal and reclaims control over the kingdom stating he loves those plumbers. The citizens destroy anything involving Koopa. As the brothers return home, Luigi and Daisy admit their love for one another but Daisy cannot return to New York until the damage caused by Koopa is reversed and she spends more time with her father. Mario rephrases Daisy's words to Luigi but he does not care. A deeply hurt and saddened Luigi kisses her goodbye and the two brothers return to New York, while Daisy watches them leave. About three weeks later, Daisy returns for Mario and Luigi's help in fighting more villains. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi's story is televised, giving them the name; "Super Mario Bros".

In a post-credits scene, two Nintendo executives talk about a video game based on their adventures but they are asking Iggy and Spike instead of the Super Mario Bros. and they decide on a title called "The Super Koopa Cousins".

Cast

• Bob Hoskins as Mario
• John Leguizamo as Luigi
• Dennis Hopper as King Koopa
• Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy
• Lance Henriksen as The King
• Fisher Stevens as Iggy
• Richard Edson as Spike
• Mojo Nixon as Toad
• Gianni Russo as Anthony Scapelli
• Dan Castellaneta as Narrator

Reception

Critical reaction

Super Mario Bros. received mainly negative reviews from film critics and fans alike. As of July 2011, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 13% of critics gave positive reviews based on 23 reviews, culminating in a "Rotten" rating, and the consensus: "Despite flashy sets and special effects, Super Mario Bros. is too light on story and substance to be anything more than a novelty."^[4] The film was ranked the 6th worst movie based on a video game by Metacritic. ^[5] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two thumbs down on the television program Siskel & Ebert At the Movies,^[6] and was on their list for one of the worst films of 1993.^[7] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times disapproved of the film's script.^[8] However, Hal Hinson of the Washington Post gave a positive review, praising the film for its spirit and later went on to say, "In short, it's a blast."^[9] Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave another positive review, but said that the film "doesn't have the jaunty hop-and-zap spirit of the Nintendo video game from which it takes – ahem – its inspiration."^[10]

Super Mario Bros. was nominated the Saturn Award for Best Costume as well as the category for Best Make-up. Despite the negative reviews, Super Mario Bros. has eventually developed a cult following.^{[citation needed]} Website The Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive regularly updates about the film; often interviewing the cast and crew of its production.

Legacy

In the Nintendo Power 20th anniversary retrospective issue, as they chronicled the games and other related releases over the magazine's life span, the film's release was listed, to which the issue stated that, while neither the film, nor its cast and crew won any awards, the fact that the film was made shows how much the game series has impacted popular culture.^[11]

Actor Bob Hoskins was critical of Super Mario Bros., calling it "the worst thing I ever did" and "the whole experience was a nightmare" in a 2007 interview with The Guardian.^[12] In another interview with The Guardian, Hoskins was asked three questions: "What is the worst job you've done?", "What has been your biggest disappointment?", and "If you could edit your past, what would you change?"; he answered Super Mario Bros. to all three. ^[13]

Dennis Hopper was also disparaging of the production, "It was a nightmare, very honestly, that movie. It was a husband-and-wife directing team who were both control freaks and wouldn't talk before they made decisions. Anyway, I was supposed to go down there for five weeks, and I was there for 17. It was so over budget."^[14]

Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's creator stated, "[In] the end, it was a very fun project that they put a lot of effort into," but also said, "The one thing that I still have some regrets about is that the movie may have tried to get a little too close to what the Mario Bros. video games were. And in that sense, it became a movie that was about a video game, rather than being an entertaining movie in and of itself."^[15]

Soundtrack

Super Mario Brothers
Soundtrack album by Various
Released	1993
Genre	Pop, Rock, Metal, Funk, Hip hop, Soul, Jazz rap
Label	Capitol

The soundtrack, released on Capitol Records, featured two songs from Roxette: "Almost Unreal" which was released as a single. The music video for "Almost Unreal" was inspired by the film, featuring scenes from the film and a de-evolution theme. "Almost Unreal" was originally written for the film Hocus Pocus but was never used and ended up attached to the Mario film instead. The change angered Roxette co-founder Per Gessle.^[16] The film's score was composed by Alan Silvestri. It has not been officially released, though bootleg copies do exist.

George Clinton (who covered the Was (Not Was) song - "Walk The Dinosaur") released a single in 1993 that contained various other versions of the same song, including a Club Remix, a "Funky Goomba" Remix, "Goomba Dub Mix" including an Instrumental version.)

Track listing

1. "Almost Unreal" - Roxette
2. "Love Is the Drug" - Divinyls (cover of a song by Roxy Music)
3. "Walk the Dinosaur" - George Clinton & The Goombas (cover of a song by Was (Not Was))
4. "I Would Stop the World" - Charles and Eddie
5. "I Want You" - Marky Mark
6. "Where Are You Going?" - Extreme
7. "Speed of Light" - Joe Satriani
8. "Breakpoint" - Megadeth
9. "Tie Your Mother Down" - Queen
10. "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" - Us3
11. "Don't Slip Away" - Tracie Spencer
12. "Somewhere My Love" - Frankie Yankovic

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Super Mario Bros.". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=supermariobros.htm. Retrieved August 13, 2010. 
2. ^ "Super Mario Bros.". Allrovi. Rovi Corporation. http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/super-mario-bros-v47787. Retrieved September 19, 2011. 
3. ^ Oxford, David (August 14, 2010). "The Super Mario Bros. movie gets DVD re-release". The Examiner (Canada). http://www.destructoid.com/super-mario-bros-the-movie-gets-re-released-on-dvd-181462.phtml. Retrieved August 22, 2010. 
4. ^ "Super Mario Bros.". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-super-mario-bros/. Retrieved July 13, 2011. 
5. ^ Thompson, Mike (September 8, 2010). "Best and Worst Movies Based on Videogames". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-and-worst-movies-based-on-videogames. Retrieved July 13, 2011. 
6. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbEH66qiwrY
7. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCYqviLKlok
8. ^ Wilmington, Michael (May 29, 1993). "Movie Review: No Offense Nintendo: Super Mario Bros. Jump to Big Screen in Feeble Extravaganza". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1993-05-29/entertainment/ca-41093_1_super-mario-bros. Retrieved June 24, 2011. 
9. ^ Hinson, Hal (May 29, 1993). "Super Mario Bros.". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/supermariobrospghinson_a0a81b.htm. Retrieved June 24, 2011. 
10. ^ Maslin, Janet (May 29, 1993). "Movie Review - Super Mario Bros.". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CEFDE1E39F93AA15756C0A965958260. Retrieved June 24, 2011. 
11. ^ "20 Years of Nintendo Power"
12. ^ Hattenstone, Simon (August 3, 2007). "The Method? Living it out? Cobblers!". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/aug/03/2. Retrieved May 24, 2010. 
13. ^ Greenstreet, Rosanna (June 18, 2011). "Q&A: Bob Hoskins". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/18/bob-hoskins-interview-neverland. Retrieved June 24, 2011. 
14. ^ "Random Roles: Dennis Hopper". AV Club. December 12, 2008. http://www.avclub.com/articles/random-roles-dennis-hopper,2549/. Retrieved August 2, 2010. 
15. ^ "MIYAMOTO: THE INTERVIEW". Edge Magazine. November 27, 2007. http://www.next-gen.biz/features/miyamoto-interview. Retrieved August 9, 2010. 
16. ^ liner notes to Roxette album, Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!

External links

• Super Mario Bros. at the Internet Movie Database
• Super Mario Bros. at AllRovi
• Super Mario Bros. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive