With this being the one year anniversary of when I began writing here on Bitmob, I wanted to do something special for the occasion but before I get started I just want to say thank you to all of the Bitmobbers who have read and supported my work and to the Bitmob Staffers who have featured some of it and even gave me advice from time to time. Posting my work here helped to build a new level of confidence I probably never had before when it came to my writing ability. So for that I say thank you and I hope that I can continue to put out some solid posts that live up to your standards.
Remember back in May when I promised to write a series of reviews for video game adaptation films? As it turns out things got fairly busy for me during the summer, so I decided to scrap the idea. However, after looking through my older posts, I came to the conclusion that Controller Cinema was a good idea and it was deserving of a revival, so without further adieu, I present to you the first edition of the newly revived Controller Cinema.
What movie did I choose? Well, I’m not sure if I chose this because I thought watching this would create an entertaining review or if I suffer from low self-esteem and want to subject myself to the mind-numbing misery. Either way, here is Super Mario Bros.: The Movie.
The story begins with a rather stupid cartoon that takes place in Brooklyn, well Brooklyn as it was 65 Million Years ago. When dinosaur’s roamed the Earth and spoke with culturally insensitive Italian accents. The dinosaur’s bask in their surroundings and speak of the pleasures of being alive. Of course they then killed instantly by a comet that plummets to Earth. The impact of the comet then creates two distinct universes. One where the dinosaurs survived and over time evolved into humanoid creatures and the other world happens to be ours. I know this is a work of fiction and we’re supposed to suspend our disbelief but could any explanation about the possibility of this occurrence even begin to make sense?
Even so, we aren’t given one, so for me at least it is still a bit of a stretch.
(Fun Fact: The Narrator for this segment was in fact Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson.)
Anyway, we phase back to current day Brooklyn where people are now the one’s speaking in culturally insensitive accents. Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) are called in to do a plumbing job but thanks to Luigi they arrive late and find out that the evil Scapelli Construction Company has already done the job for them. Who are they? Who cares. *Sigh* Fine. They are basically a group of stereotypical doucebag mobsters who act as the film’s secondary villains.
As the brothers tend to their van, which Luigi crashed into the curve (I think), they run into an NYU archaeology student named Daisy (Samantha Mathis and yes, she is that Daisy) who Luigi immediately falls in love with. As it turns out, Daisy is in charge of an archaeological dig nearby and she is being pressured by Scapelli and his goons to leave so he can put up a mall in that spot or some shit like that. I don’t know I wasn’t paying attention. But I do know that he threatened to make her disappear in broad daylight, with a group of archaeology students and a news crew all within earshot. When you make your intent to murder somebody public knowledge, you may want to re-think your career path. You can become a pizza man or leaning tower maker or any of the other one-dimensional stereotypes these uninspired writers think are funny.
Anyway, considering that both Daisy and the Mario’s (sigh both of there last names are Mario. Take a second to let the stupidity of that statement sink in) have a mutual hatred for Scapelli, Mario offers her a ride back to the dig site and Luigi manages to get a date with her.
(Huh, Huh, Huh. Luigi's gonna score)
To make a long story short: Later that night Mario and Luigi go on a double date with Daisy and some chick who owns a tanning salon (the Italian American stereotypes just keep coming don’t they?) The date goes well and Daisy gives Luigi a closer look of the site, which happens to be in the sewer for some reason. However, Scapelli’s men sabotage it by attempting to flood the sewers. Mario is called in and with Luigi’s help he is able to fix it. But oh noes! It turns out that two guys who look a weird mesh of mid 90’s grunger and late 30’s swinger who (I shit you not) are supposed to be Iggy and Spike Koopa from Mario Bros. 3, attack the Mario brothers, kidnap Daisy and take her to the parallel dimension that was mentioned in the opening. Why do they kidnap Daisy? Because she is the only one who can allow the evil King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) to travel to our dimension, so he can plunder all of our natural resources and turn us all into monkeys. You’ll never guess in a million years which douchebags get turned into monkeys.
So Mario and Luigi have to travel through the alternate Brooklyn filled with people wearing punkish looking clothes with bad make up to make them look reptilian to save Daisy and prevent Koopa from taking over our world.
Want to know what happens next? Risk your own sanity and watch the movie for yourself.
The plot is incredibly stupid. I know the plot of the games isn’t exactly Pulitzer Prize winning material but come on. The Mushroom Kingdom and the characters of the Mario universe could have been expanded upon and given a greater bit of depth and development, while staying true to the source material if it had been handled by a competent writer. A good writer could have taken some creative liberties and altered The Mushroom Kingdom and it’s characters to make them more compelling for a two hour film. How do I know this? Because the writers of Sonic SATAM were able to do easily and make it work for two TV seasons. They took a game about a Blue Hedgehog who could run really fast and turned it into a story about a group of freedom fighters trying to save their home planet from tyrannical rule, as well as provide a subtle allegory for environmentalism. Sure it deviated a bit from the original games but it borrowed enough from the source material to make it feel like it belonged with the cannon of the games, even though some of the key aspects were different.
This movie was written by three people (and directed by another three) and their attempt to alter Mario’s world to make it more “interesting” fails miserably because they have no sense of creativity and imagination. Instead of trying to add some more depth and character development to the colorful world of the games to give it more of a cinematic story, they had the bright idea to make it all dark and gritty because this was the 90’s and they just had to steal ideas from post apocalyptic movies to cash in on a fad.
Seriously though, when you go from dark and serious (to fulfill your “artistic” vision) to zany chase scenes with Home Alone style music (to make sure the kids go home happy), it just doesn’t work and neither of those aspects work with the source material. All you do is make the kids feel scared and disappointed and make the older fans feel angered and disappointed. Returning to my Sonic SATAM example, it to had a darker backdrop (Robotropolis/Scrap Brain Zone) but it was counter balanced with the bright and colorful (Green Hill Zone/Knothole) aspects of the Sonic games. Not to mention that characters and stories were actually well developed for a kids show and it also had plenty of action to make the kids feel excited, rather than anxious.
(Oh why couldn't I be reviewing you?)
Granted, the city does look pretty cool when you first see it, but once you soak up the atmosphere, you really begin to notice how awful it really is. I mean the fact that it looks like it is decaying/under construction gives the impression that the crew didn’t really feel like constructing an entire set and adjusted the script accordingly. I also find the fact that the city is covered in moss and fungus is a rather lame attempt at bringing in some of the flavor of the Mushroom Kingdom to keep fans from complaining about its absence. Oh and the big revaluation about the fungus is the dumbest plot twist I have ever seen on film.
The special effects range from pretty cool (the method in which they travel between the two dimensions), to lame (the jump shoes), to down right pathetic (an inch high frog’s head on Lurches body does not equal a Goomba). But I will hand it to the filmmakers for allowing the make up artists to do their stuff and not overly relying on CG because when they use CG it sucks. Koopas T-Rex form and Yoshi are examples of why I hate CG.
(Is it possible to make any form of sense from this image?)
Sure, you’ll find hints and references to all of your favorites aspects of The Mushroom Kingdom but instead of finding yourself fondly waxing nostalgic, you’ll likely be infuriated by the mistreatment of the much beloved source material.
For the most part, the actors seemed as if they absolutely hated working on this picture and completely phoned in their performances as a result. This couldn’t be more evident with the performances of Hopper and Hoskins. Hopper usually does a terrific job of playing batshit crazy characters but here he just seems so disheartened and disappointed in himself, as if he absolutely regretted taking on the role.
(Hey baby. Does my Lizard tounge turn you on?)
It seems that every line spoken by Hoskins is filled with a venomous rage. Each piece of his dialogue comes off as either bitter, angry or sarcastic.
(I'm only doing this to make my kids think I'm cool)
I’ll hand it to Leguizamo. It seemed like he was the only actor in the entire film that was having any sense of fun with his role. He tries his best but the plot being as weak as it is and the dialogue being as idiotic as it is, really sticks it to his performance and makes come off as annoying.
(Common Mario. We got guns. How is that not awesome? Shut uppa your mouth Luigi)
Miyamoto may have forgiven this piece of cinematic crap, but I sure as Hell won’t be anytime soon and neither should you if you decide to check it for yourself. Just don’t expect all of your brain cells to make it out alive. You’ve been warned.
1 star out of a possible 5.
If you would like me to continue this series, tell me in the comment section.
