Movie Brothers,
So Mario Brothers… this was the first Video Game Movie, it’s known as a pretty big bomb and is not available on any streaming service. We had to download a copy that looked like it was stolen from Kazaa in 2000. But I personally think it holds up. I mean they didn’t have much to work with, I couldn’t tell you the backstory of Mario or even the world it takes place in. Really the only flaw in the movie is that it’s not MORE over the top. There’s nothing that stands out as like WOW THAT WAS INSANE.
We did it! We finally got to 100 movies watched. We started on 2/4/2016 with ‘Totally Awesome’ and now on 11/28/2018 we have watched 100 movies! 2 years, 9 months, 26 days. I think, cause the numbers got all screwed up in there somewhere. It’s hard to keep anything like this up for so long. I think credit for that goes to you guys, coming back every week and wanting to watch these questionable quality movies. I have really enjoyed showing you some of the classics I’ve discovered “The Room”, “Miami Connection”, “Totally Awesome” and discovering new all time classics like “Superfighters”, “Petey Wheatstraw”, “Hell Comes to Frogtown”, “Hard Ticket To Hawaii”… damn we need to rewatch some of these.
I really appreciate you guys coming on this journey with me!
I’m going to try to recruit some new people, I invited Wade Chi, but he never responds. I jokingly sent this email about 700 times to Charlie Prindle, but he’s never once mentioned it. So he must have been sending it straight to the trash since the beginning. I’m adding David Kirlin on the list, I told him about it when I saw him in California and he seemed cool with it.
budget : 48 million
box office : 20.9 Million
Plot:
Open on a woman in a weird spikey jacket running in the rain to a convent with a basket, the basket has an egg in it. The egg opens and… we aren’t shown what happens, cut to Nun’s horrified face. That’s how you thought this would start right? Just straight up horror movie shit. Cut to modern day Brooklyn where we meet the Mario Brothers. Though in this movie they are not ACTUAL BROTHERS, cause we learn later that Luigi is adopted. Did they choose to do that because Leguisamo can’t do an Italian accent? I don’t know. The meet a woman, Daisy, who is an archeologist. She’s working on a dig in… downtown NYC? ok. It’s being threatened by a evil land developer, Trump? so she’s being followed by these two mid 90’s fashion goons. Fisher Stevens and that guy from Ferris Bueller. They accidentally kidnap Mario’s smoking hot girlfriend instead. But then in a coincidence they also kidnap Daisy when the plumbers are helping her fix her pipes at the dig site.
Why is there plumbing at the dig site already? You know what would really stop the building of this evil land developers building…. A 1000 foot crack in the earth. The Engineers are going to shut this thing down anyway.
So, these Marios have possession of Daisy’s magic rock crystal thing. They jump through a solid rock face that is the doorway between dimensions and fall through literal HELL into a futuristic cityscape that is populated by extra rude armed New Yorker stereotypes. Also everybody is wearing spikes on everything and the cars all run on electricity like streetcars. It’s like Mad Max Mardi gras in there. We also meet Toad, he’s a street musician.
The rock in instantly stolen by a BBW in red leather. The Marios are arrested and taken to jail. The leader of this hellscape is King Koopa, although there are election banners… so maybe he’s President Koopa. He tries to get the rock, they have no rock. He explains his evil plan to merge the dimensions and de-evolve the humans to monkeys. He also uses this machine to turn toad into a goomba, which… is giant body with a tiny dinosaur head. I mean it looks cool, but it confusing.
They escape.
There’s a mad max style street car chase, they fly out of an unfinished tunnel and are saved by a net of fungus.
this movie is way to complicated.
At this point the Marios have realized that they need the magic rock. So they figure out where this red leather BBW is and Mario Mario turns on the charm to get it back. This does include a scene where he buries his face in her cleavage and tries to eat the magic rock. You know, for kids!
THEY GET THIS!
Lightning Round…
- There’s a dumb joke that Luigi pulls and almost gets his brother killed, but the mushroom saves him.
- They tell Daisy that she’s a princess and HAS THE POWER TO UNITE THE WORLDS.
- They rescue the other human women and escape in a frozen tunnel slide.
- There’s a couple Bullet Bill references in there and a Bob-Bomb.
Anyway conclude this shit already.
Koopas right hand woman decided to try to merge the worlds herself and it electrocuted into a bride of Frankenstein fossil. The worlds do begin to merge and Koopa and Mario are ‘Avengers Infinity War Dusted’ into the real world Brooklyn. While there the only thing Koopa does is turn the Evil land developer into a monkey. then, Daisy pulls the rock back and they snap back to… what is this place called? Just realized that I have no idea? Tear as lee?
anyway, they blast Koopa with the DEVO gun , he turns into a T-rex and then they blow him up with a Bob-bomb. Everybody celebrate!
Random Thoughts
- This is hella complicated for a game that gave them mustaches because the resolution was so low they couldn’t draw mouths.
- They never jump on anyones head, missed opportunity.
- I like all the creature effects, a little stiff, but good job overall.
- It’s a little stupid, but HEY IT”S A KIDS MOVIE.
- What were they supposed to do? I think this is the best possible outcome.
- I want a sequel.
- Pretty good acting, for something this crazy.
- Someone should have ridden Yoshi.
- Could have used a Castle Block Motif somewhere
- Mario should have broken a brick with his head.
- More giant coins.
- Your princess is in another castle.
- They did a pretty good job incorporating Mario Elements, Twomp, Bullet Bills, spikes on turtles, some of the characters…
Further Watching/ReadingI recommend the gaming historian
John Leguizamo 20th Anniversary Video Message
Gamin Historian : Super Mario Brothers Movie
The Guardian : The Stench of it Stays with Everybody Involved
Den Of Geek : 10 Remarkable things about Super Mario Bros
Thanks Guys!
See you next Thursday at 8:30 EST
-Mark
why does Daisy have the power to not be destroyed by the meteor? couldn’t they have just walked out like the first two guys who originally kidnapped her? i thought Kpppa was more turtle based and was surprised he turned into a dinosaur. T-rex makes sense because it’s equated to the more badass dino.
Charlie?
Super Mario Bros. (also known as Super Mario Bros.: The Movie) is a 1993 adventure comedy film[6] loosely based on the Mario video game series by Nintendo. It is the first feature-length live-action film to be based on a video game.[7] The film was directed by the husband-and-wife team of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures through Hollywood Pictures. Its story follows the Mario brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) in their quest to rescue Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) from a dystopic parallel universe ruled by the ruthless President Koopa (Dennis Hopper).
Given free creative license by Nintendo, the screenwriters envisioned the film as a subversive comedy with a "weird and dark" tone similar to Ghostbusters (1984) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). The setting was primarily inspired by the Nintendo game Super Mario World (1990), with other elements drawn from fairy tales and contemporary American culture. The production innovated and introduced many filmmaking techniques now considered pivotal in the transition from practical to digital visual effects, including the use of Autodesk Flame.
Released on May 28, 1993, the film was a critical and financial failure, grossing an estimated $35 million worldwide, against a budget of $42–48 million. Reviewers praised the innovative special effects, creative artistic direction, and the performances of its actors, but criticized the confusing narrative, lack of similarity to the games and inconsistent tone. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto felt the film tried too hard to replicate the games instead of being a good film.
Despite a poor reception, the film gained a cult following in later years[8][9] and has been recently regarded as a cult classic.[10][11][12] In 2012, a webcomic sequel was produced in collaboration with Bennett. It remained the only live-action film based on a Nintendo game property until Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019).[13] As of 2018, an animated Mario reboot film was in development by Universal Pictures through its Illumination division, with Miyamoto serving as co-producer alongside Illumination founder Chris Meledandri, with the film's release slated for 2022.
source : wikipedia