Disc Reviews

Super Mario Bros Blu-ray Review

2nd Nov 2014

Some 21 years after it failed to find a significant cinema audience, Rocky Morton & Annabel Jankel’s much maligned and possibly misunderstood movie adaptation of the Nintendo smash hit game, comes to high definition Blu-ray.

How has time treated this movie? Today, it certainly enjoys something of a cult following (perhaps with a small ‘c’), and who knows, this Blu-ray might help to further soften public opinion to a film that just didn’t connect at the time.

Let’s have a look then, but first some context.

Cast your mind back to the mid 1990s. Video game adaptations were very much becoming the Saveur du Mois. Somewhere between the transition between 4^th and 5^th generation games consoles, the video game movie was having its first flush of youthful expression in Hollywood. Adaptations were getting green lit, left, right, and indeed centre. Well, weird as it may sound now so far down the line; but in 1993, Super Mario Bros. was pretty much the first of them, and by default; set the bar.

Now, some of these movies worked quite well, and were hugely successful (say Mortal Kombat), but most were not (Double Dragon, and Streetfighter come to mind).

Super Mario Bros. was not a success either of course, and on its unintentionally inflated budget of almost $50m, it returned a box office take of a little over $20m. Subjective memory trawling really only brings forth the Roxette song Almost Unreal as the movie’s only real substantive successful element. The song was a big hit, and doesn’t sound half bad even now, but even that was commandeered from another film (written for, but unused in Disney’s Hocus Pocus much to Per Gessle’s chagrin).

So how do you make a live action movie out of an 8bit side scrolling platform video game that has no real story?

This no doubt, was one of many issues the writers had to try and figure out. In some ways, it sounds like a recipe for blue sky creativity, as there was no established narrative in the game to slavishly adhere to (or deviate from).

If you never saw it back in the day, here’s basically what they came up with:

Mario (Bob Hoskins with his plug-in dodgy American accent), and Luigi (John Leguizamo), are Italian/American Brooklyn plumbers (so far so good). While on the way to a job; the lads happen upon Samantha Mathis (remember her?), doing her best to look like a student palaeontologist, complete with khaki shorts and sturdy boots. Unbeknownst to her, she’s really an orphaned princess from an evolved dinosaur parallel dimension of course, and the fossil dig she’s working on contains a conduit between our dimension, and theirs….

Evolved Dinosaur parallel dimension you say?

Yes, don’t worry about it. All you need to know is that the tyrannical (excuse the pun), leader of the dinosaur dimension, King Koopa (Dennis Hopper on ‘cut the check’ auto-pilot), has been searching for Princess Daisy, as she is in possession of a chunk of rock that happens to be the key to reunifying the two dimensions, which is what Koopa wants to do, so he can rule or something.

It’s not important.

Koopa’s henchmen (Spike and Iggy), do end up successfully kidnapping Daisy, and Mario and Luigi have to come save her, and stop King Koopa. Fun, games, and adventure are supposed to ensue, and here we are.

Picture and sound quality won’t set any pulses racing, but it’s clean, detailed and reasonably vibrant. Dinohattan (yes, that’s the name of the place), is referencing Blade Runner quite heavily in its design and lighting, but there the comparison ends. Naturally, we have a full 1080p/24fps HD presentation of the main feature, and both 5.1 DTS-HD, and standard LPCM 2.0 stereo sound options, plus English subtitles for the hard of hearing.

The movie is presented in 1:85:1 Anamorphic widescreen, and although not nearly as cinematic as 2:35:1 scope; I’m not sure this film would have benefitted from the wider vista.

Bonus features are good, with the crowning glory being an all new 60 minute documentary ‘This Ain’t No Video Game’. The documentary is informative, and refreshingly honest, with Morton, Jankel, Leguizamo, and Richard Edson (Spike), in particular being verbose, and candid but never mean. It’s a shame Hoskins only appears in archive interview segments; as he was always quite fiercely negative about the movie in interviews during the intervening years since its release. Leguizamo in particular has a much more philosophical stance. Edson of course is Edson; which means he’s completely nuts, but very entertaining.

Other extras are as follows:

Original Making Of Doc
Original Electronic Press Kit (many of the same archive clips here, as in the main documentary)
Behind The Scenes/Storyboard Galleries

Well, in all honesty, reacquainting oneself with Super Mario Bros. was genuinely a more enjoyable experience than expected. The film is a complete mess, yes, and is patently still every bit as flawed as it ever was. However, despite so many nuts and bolts being misaligned or even entirely absent; the script ranging from patchy to bloody awful, and some of the acting being simply atrocious, particularly (but not restricted to), the smaller supporting cast; there is more to like here than history has given it credit for.

The early 90s is a funny time in Hollywood, as good CGI special effects were still the preserve of only the biggest movies. Lesser films had to make do with all the traditional photochemical stuff, models, animatronics, and/or slightly less than cutting edge CGI. Mario definitely falls into this bracket, and as is often the case; it is the CGI that lets the movie down, while animatronics and other traditional ‘in camera’ effects hold up much better.

Hoskins and Leguizamo appear to be trying their best, and ultimately form quite a likeable duo. Spike and Iggy (the aforementioned Richard Edson, and Fisher Stevens on good form if perhaps having to try a little too hard), are a mixed bag, but their antics are occasionally amusing. The Goombas (Koopa’s hulking oversized, trench-coat wearing, dino-headed henchmen), are unexpectedly endearing (one of them in particular). There’s a scene in a lift, where Luigi gently rocks each Goomba to the gentle Muzak, until the entire lift-load of these reptilian brutes are happily swaying in unison; seemingly really enjoying the sensation. It is right out of leftfield considering these guys are generally the pursuant menace for Mario and Luigi throughout the film; but it works, and pays off again later on. One gets the feeling that there could have been a much more cohesive and convincing movie somewhere in the melting pot of talents and ideas that came together (or didn’t).

All in all, despite everything you may have heard before, and all that is said here; Super Mario Bros. deserves a second look, and this Blu-ray is certainly the best way to go about it.