Welcome back to CraveOnline‘s Trolling, dear friends. It is here where we devote our lives to committing every possible act of pop-culture heresy, putting every shred of our critical credibility on the line for the simple act of pissing you off. We attack the dear, and defend the indefensible. Read on, good sirs and madams, and feel the hate flow through you. Your hate makes us stronger. This week, I’ll be talking about the film that should be everyone’s favorite movie. Better than Aliens or The Dark Knight is 1993’s immortal classic Super Mario Bros.
The vast, post-apocalyptic wasteland of video-game-to-movie adaptations is a treacherous and tricky one. These days, video games are as varied and as complex as any medium, and they have – over the course of the last decade – come to supplant music as the single cultural signifier of American youth. The stories and characters from video games are celebrated just as highly as the characters and stories of feature films, so it’s something of a mystery why a major Hollywood studio hasn’t been able make a video-game-based movie that has become a big hit.
But there was one exception to the rule in what is probably the best video-game-to-movie adaptation made to date, and that is Rocky Morton’s and Annabel Jankel’s Super Mario Bros., a notoriously panned bomb (Bob-Omb?), and often cited as one of the worst movies of the 1990s.
But the critics are all wrong, the audiences are all wrong, and anyone who has had the audacity to attack Super Mario Bros. in any regard is all wrong. Indeed, Super Mario Bros. may prove to be one of the most entertaining, creative, and exciting movies of the 1990s. We here at Trolling declare: Super Mario Bros. rules. Here are some reasons why:
Super Mario Bros. was not a success and is, to this day, used as a byword for game-to-film failure. It also has a growing cult underneath it of people who love it and support it without a whiff of irony. Its popularity grows, and its esteem as a rollicking entertainment may someday finally be realized. Why do you hate it? It’s so lovable!
Until next week, let the hate mail flow.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Super Mario Bros. RULES
-
The Cast Is Good
The casting of the film is pretty impeccable. As two New York-based wiseguy plumbers, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo give depth and character to onscreen video game avatars that were previously defined only by their overalls. They're not terribly rich, but I'd rather see wisecracking New Yorkers than bland heroic ciphers. What's more, the actors who play the villains are all clearly having a great time, mostly Fiona Shaw as King Koopa's floozy. Richard Edson and Fisher Stevens play a pair of idiot mooks who are mutated into geniuses halfway through the movie, and they have panache and energy. The love interest (Samantha Mathis) seems like a real person, and not just some bimbo. And, of course, the movie's star, Dennis Hopper, lends a kind of off-kilter craziness to the role of King Koopa that a lesser actor would not have. Also Lance Henricksen and Mojo Nixon briefly appear to class things up. Good cast, man.
-
The Production Design is Great
Super Mario Bros. was, according to legend, intended to be the starting point for a sub-park within Disneyland, complete with all the over-designed storefronts and grimy steampunk sensibilities from the movie. The park never came to be, but the film's production design turned out to be glorious nonetheless. A futuristic, darkened New York City, full of reptile humanoids, choked with web-like fungus, and creepily overseen by small-headed Goombahs, the dinosaur city is a constant wonder of effects and design, invoking a delirious theme park pop-punk version of Nazi Germany in the year 2020. This was also before the days of constant CGI, so that set had to be built on a soundstage, making the feat all the more impressive.
-
It Has Fun Characters
Too many fantasy/action films feature cold-eyed and determined hero types whose only character beat is to accomplish the task at hand. The Mario brothers are, at last, energetic and funny. They are never given to brooding or meaningless adolescent introspection (I'm looking at you, every superhero movie ever made). For once, we have people with a real-world skill set (plumbing) who use it to undo a dinosaur empire. They're not martial arts experts or computer hackers. They are down-to-Earth fellows who you wouldn't mind having a beer with. What's more, they're both charming to their respective women. Luigi and Daisy seem equally capable and have a good regard for one another, while Mario is seen briefly and lovingly canoodling with his girlfriend Daniella (Dana Kaminski). These are guys with actual personality the way real people have it. In a very salient way, Mario and Luigi are more interesting than anything from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or the Marvel canon. I'm serious.
-
The Story is Pretty Awesome
Dig the premise: The meteor that is said to have struck the earth millions of years ago, killing off the dinosaurs, actually split the planet into two parallel universes. In one, primates evolved into humans. In the other, surviving dinosaurs evolved into humans. The dinosaurs now want to invade the primate planet (Earth), kidnap a missing princess, and take over. Their own world has been degraded to mostly desert. This is a pretty awesome and undeniably creative approach to what could have been rote hero material. The story has a pleasantly weird quality that makes the movie stand out and keeps it memorable. It's something that hadn't been tried before, and that's always a positive thing.
-
It Was Wise to Eschew the Source Material
The loudest complaint I have heard about Super Mario Bros. is how little it resembled the game. Really? Is that what you actually wanted? A movie that looked like the game? The game was a cartoon madhouse of random video game logic. It was a world where mushrooms doubled your size, turtle shells were kicked around as a matter of course, and fish would randomly catapult up from beneath your feet. This is not the place to start a movie. If you want something that looked like the game, I'll direct you to the insufferable animated program “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!” That's what it would have looked like. And you still would have hated it.
No. The filmmakers were very wise to create a steroids-heavy industrial fantasy wherein the characters were re-imagined as real people, and the Mushroom Kingdom was abandoned altogether. The best possible version of The Mushroom Kingdom, fire flowers, buzzy beetles, and wicked dragons couldn't possibly have made for a good film. It would have been a cross between Pokémon and Jean Cocteau. Which may have been interesting. But never good. No. They did the right thing.
-
I Want a Pair of Stompers So Bad
Not since the Hoverboards in Back to the Future Part II have I wanted to personally own a movie widget so badly. The Stompers were essentially rocket-powered boots that, with one cartridge, allowed you to merrily float high through the air for several precious seconds. Also, they looked really cool. What kid didn't want a pair of those? What adult doesn't still?
