Techtite's What Went Wrong --- When Entertainment Goes Awry!

Given all of the failures in movies based on video games, it would seem like Super Mario Bros. is an "obvious" turkey in film history. Yet many people actually had high hopes for Mario. For one thing he had Disney's "Hollywood Pictures" behind him. Add Dennis Hopper as the villain, a then-newcomer John Leguizamo as Luigi, and Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) as Mario. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Yet Super Mario Bros. would crash and burn at the box office, becoming the vanguard of jokes against "video game movies," forevermore.

What Went Right? It's fair enough to say that among all the modern video game icons, Mario would appear to be the best fodder for a live-action movie. Just about every main character in Mario lore is amusing, from brother Luigi to Princess Daisy, and from the villain turned "quasi-hero" Donkey Kong, to the giant, monstrous Bowser. There's the potential for a great live action movie here. The fact someone attempted such a movie, is hardly what went "wrong."

The cast was also well chosen. Bob Hoskins was a perfect Mario. Who would they choose for his gangly brother Luigi, than a then-total-newcomer by the name of John Leguizamo. As for the villain: hey, if the budget couldn't pay for a humongous imaginary villain named "Bowzer," at least they could cast a suitable villain, via Dennis Hopper. There's really not a single "human" role, small or large, which was miscast. As for the "non-human" roles...we'll get to those later.

They also cast the lovely Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy. Simply put: her scenes were the best moments of the movie. Many promising movies are ruined because of miscasting, where an important role is tossed to whomsoever is the latest "it girl" in Hollywood (i.e.: Julia Roberts as "Tinkerbell"). Not so for Mario Bros., which cast an actress who was best for the role. It would've been better news, of course, if Super Mario Bros. could've been the hit that put Samantha Mathis on the "A"-list map. They were at least smart enough to cast her, though, and that's cool.

One more thing that went right here: the publicity for the movie had everyone really "pumped up" to see it. This may be surprising to anyone today, when "video game movies" have a bad rep. It's important to remember that this was the first movie based on a video game, ever. Making a movie based on a video game character was a novel, fresh idea, with lots of promise. So, you can see how the red carpet (so to speak) was rolled out for a cinematic concept that everyone felt was pretty "daring" at the time. It had a good budget, a powerful studio behind it, and at the time, a very clever marketing campaign. This was not some mere "direct to DVD" production, here.

So basically; you have a well cast movie, with an impressive budget, and a good publicity campaign behind it. What else did they need, that they didn't have? Well...

What Went Wrong? The first big problem: timing. To wit: this movie came down the turnpike during a whole lot of dinosaur- mania in modern pop culture. Among the most popular family sitcoms: ABC's Dinosaurs. Among the most popular movies: Jurassic Park, released that same year! One can imagine a businessman at Disney Studios with the unfinished Mario script on his desk one day, with a poster on the wall for Disney's Dinosaurs, thinking to himself: "Let's make Mario fight dinosaurs. Kids will eat it up!"

To try and force feed a plumber into a "Jurassic" story is not only a mistake: it's pretty obvious the writers had no idea what they were doing, here. An article in Spy magazine claimed this film had so many script rewrites, the cast actually began ignoring them. Who can blame them: how much of a paradox is it to see a plumber battling dinosaurs? Don't even get fans started, with how favorite characters were de-evolved (so to speak) for this dinosaur script. "Goombas" were not dinosaurs. King Koopa was not a "human dinosaur." As for Yoshi, who I suppose is (sort of) a reptile: he's now a friendly baby T-Rex! Don't ask me; I only type what I see. Yoshi, the Friendly Baby T-Rex. Seriously.

You can't write "what went wrong" about this movie, without mentioning those laughably baby-headed "goombas." What was the point of this? How could any "villain" possibly expect to conquer the world with an army of visual gags? It was actually pretty distracting, whenever a small-headed behemoth came on screen, and heroes and villains alike seemed totally ambivalent about it. Not once does anyone look at the villain's "henchmen" and ask, "What's with the small heads, idiot?" I'd joke that a "small head" wrote the script, though this is a family oriented web site. Let's move on.

This is just a small sample of the film's incapacity to decide on a target audience. Sure, you can make a dinosaur movie, to appeal to all the early 1990's dino-mania. You have to decide on an audience, though. Are you making another Jurassic Park...or another Land Before Time? This movie wanted to appeal to both audiences. Uh-oh! One half of this movie resembles something goofy for the little kiddies. The other half is appealing only to older viewers...and even then, only barely. In fact; many "jokes" meant for older viewers were way too cryptic. Example: the "Mushroom King" is turned into a giant pool of fungus. Get it? Don't worry if you missed the "joke," kids; it's not that funny, anyway.

It doesn't help when a turkey of a movie daringly ends with one of those "to be continued in the sequel" type deals. Mario and Luigi sit in their home, and in charges Princess Daisy, dressed like a gun-toting sci-fi commando. She needs Mario's help again...though to see why, be sure to buy enough tickets to warrant a sequel. Don't hold your breath! The sequel was never made...and this open ending, as a result, made the whole movie even more annoying than it was.

The real mistake of any movie based on a popular movie/series/game, is a total lack of any coherent knowledge about the subject matter. The only real link this movie had with Super Mario was: 1) a "fat guy" as the hero, 2) a "skinny guy" as his sidekick, 3) a sandy-blonde princess, and 4) a bad guy with lizard qualities. Diehard fans would insist Mario was more than that. This movie was less. It's as easy as that.

Article by Techtite, copyright 2007; all rights reserved. Title graphics, and pix not of reviewed product, are created by Techtite, copyright 1999-2007; all rights reserved. Screen captures and publicity photos are only for the purpose of this commentary, and by no means represent any affiliation with Techtite and the distributors of that product. For further "legalese" & disclaimers, click here...

What Went Wrong?

Super Mario Bros.: The Movie

Commentary by Techtite