"Super Mario Bros." is an American 100-minute movie from 1993, so this one will have its 25th anniversary next year. For Jankel and Morton, the two English Emmy-winning directors, this is certainly still their most known work a of today, but that really has to do with the epicness of the characters, not because it was a good movie by any means, but because absolutely everybody knows Super Mario and Luigi from the video games. And that includes me as well as I grew up with this series too. That's why it makes me even sadder that, despite the inclusion of some quality actors, the outcome here was this underwhelming. Honestly, I did not get the Mario vibe at all and to me it did not feel like a Super Mario movie. The red and green costumes as well as the protagonists being plumbers is just not enough, just like the use of the names of the characters like Mario, Luigi, King Koopa and Daisy with the latter two apparently still being more known names back then than Bowser and Peach. Anyway, that of course is not the problem here I think. The real problem is that the attention to detail that really could have been key here was so minimal. The smaller references about the video game (bombs, mushrooms...) were not on a level that could satisfy video game fans sadly. And the negatively deal-breaker consequence is that it just never felt like Mario ever. It was a fantasy film, but not a particularly good one as it also did not succeed in its own right.
It also felt really generic in my opinion, for example with the relationship between Luigi and Daisy. That felt really forced to give the film some dramatic and romantic relevance that it certainly did not need. This should have been a pointless fun movie to be honest. Of course, this project as a whole was a huge challenge given the base material here, but it is kinda shocking to see that there were a pretty large amount of three writers working on the adaptation and it became such a mess. At least it is not a complete failure really as here and there, there was an okay moment. But these were clearly in the minority. What stays far more memorable here is the weak unfortunately. For example regardless of what you think about Dennis Hopper as an actor, he never felt like Bowser one bit. Not at all. I personally also did not like Yoshi's looks, but in contrast to Hopper, who was never on a level to feel like a top-notch antagonist, I'd say this is more of a subjective perception. The bar was definitely too high here and I am not too surprised no other filmmakers showed any ambition to take on the story of Mario and the gang. These days, a film like that may be career-ending Razzie material. Okay what else is there to say. I guess the filmmakers did not think this would bomb that hard and get such a high percentage of negative reviews as the ending looked like they certainly had plans to make a sequel, but of course it never happened. Finally, about this one here again: It is not Mario to me and it could have been way better. It is a forgettable fantasy film instead and I give it a thumbs-down. Don't watch.
It also felt really generic in my opinion, for example with the relationship between Luigi and Daisy. That felt really forced to give the film some dramatic and romantic relevance that it certainly did not need. This should have been a pointless fun movie to be honest. Of course, this project as a whole was a huge challenge given the base material here, but it is kinda shocking to see that there were a pretty large amount of three writers working on the adaptation and it became such a mess. At least it is not a complete failure really as here and there, there was an okay moment. But these were clearly in the minority. What stays far more memorable here is the weak unfortunately. For example regardless of what you think about Dennis Hopper as an actor, he never felt like Bowser one bit. Not at all. I personally also did not like Yoshi's looks, but in contrast to Hopper, who was never on a level to feel like a top-notch antagonist, I'd say this is more of a subjective perception. The bar was definitely too high here and I am not too surprised no other filmmakers showed any ambition to take on the story of Mario and the gang. These days, a film like that may be career-ending Razzie material. Okay what else is there to say. I guess the filmmakers did not think this would bomb that hard and get such a high percentage of negative reviews as the ending looked like they certainly had plans to make a sequel, but of course it never happened. Finally, about this one here again: It is not Mario to me and it could have been way better. It is a forgettable fantasy film instead and I give it a thumbs-down. Don't watch.