Super Mario Bros.

Over thirty years later, 1993's "Super Mario Bros." remains one of the most fascinating case studies in "missing the point" to have ever emerged from a major studio. A film that is such a bizarre misfire that it's genuinely entertaining to watch for just how darned weird it is. By the time the movie came out, Super Mario had been well-established with dozens of game appearances, and about a half-dozen different shows and animated films. And in virtually every instance, there was a lot of consistency... Mario and Luigi were boisterous plumbers who needed to save the magical Mushroom Kingdom and its princess Peach from an evil lizard-king known as Bowser. The live-action movie on the other hand? Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) are adoptive father-son figures who are pulled into a dark, dank post-apocalyptic nightmare-world called "Dinohattan" to save a woman named Daisy (Samantha Mathis) from a germaphobe tyrant (Dennis Hopper) who wants to merge his dimension with Earth by uniting two pieces of an ancient asteroid. All in a bid to... turn humans into monkeys? The stories behind this film's production are almost legendary, with seemingly everyone having a different take on how to translate the game into a movie, and the creators at Nintendo being relatively hands-off. (A mistake they would not repeat with the far superior 2023 animated movie.) And as a result, we ended up with quite a messy little film that bombed on release, but has slowly garnered a dedicated cult-following over the years. Like others in my age-range (adults in their 30s-40s who grew up in the 80s and 90s), this is a film that I have a lot of nostalgia for. For the longest time, this was the only Super Mario movie there was. And many of us grew up watching it, oblivious to its faults because we were too young to care. And Australian boutique distributor Umbrella has given it what is perhaps one of the most beautiful and comprehensive releases with their two separate 4K sets. (I opted to go for the slightly cheaper "1-Up" edition, which largely has everything from the slightly more expensive set, minutes a few minor collectibles.) To start, if you're in the United States, this set will work in your R1 players. The 4K disc is region-free as most 4K discs are, while the Blu-Ray discs are technically region-coded B, but have a nifty little coding quirk allowing them to play in American R1/A players. (This seems to be fairly common with many Australian boutique releases.) So if you want to pick this up but you're in the US, don't fear... it'll work perfectly! The 4K transfer is absolutely fantastic. This is probably the best the film will ever look on a home-video release, and it feels near cinema-quality. Scenes display clear sharpness with a nice amount of natural film grain present, while colors are faithful to the original release, albeit with a nice boost in vibrance compared to previous releases on VHS and DVD. Fine details in clothing and backgrounds also blew me away in a few key scenes. And the standard HD Blu-Ray similarly looks phenomenal, and is worth watching even if you can't view the 4K presentation. In terms of extras, it's absolutely mind-blowing how much there is on this release. Among other things, this release contains: 4 Audio Commentary Tracks Deleted Scenes Vintage and Newly Created Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes and Interviews And even a digitized VHS screener of an early cut of the film containing some minor alterations and a temp-score containing a slew of music from other feature films. Also included are a multi-hundred page book with articles, photos and early designs along with a second book containing two fairly different early drafts of the script, along with a reprint of a 1993 magazine about the movie and art-cards. If you're a fan of this movie, there's really not much else you could hope for. The discs alone are worth the purchase, and the extra books and art-cards just sweeten the pot even more. 5 out of 5. One of the best 4K releases I own for one of the weirdest films I've ever seen.

You read that right: I think that this film is good, and not in a "so bad it's good" type of way. Anyway, I got this for somebody for Christmas, but I've watched it more than enough times to review it. For starters, I don't think it's the worst conceivable implementation of the Super Mario Bros. universe. Think about it: In the original Mario Bros. arcade game, Mario and Luigi are plumbers from New York. What are they in this film? Plumbers from New York! Imagine that. The films tries to do something that Nintendo has never even attempted in reconciling Mario Bros. with Super Mario Bros. (Yes, I know that Yoshi's Island makes the film's idea impossible, but that game wasn't out when this movie released.). Also, they went as far to include Paulina and Daisy, and they spent a few seconds building up Princess Toadstool as this great leader. There's a lot of fan service in the movie, despite some of the (valid) problems Mario fans find with it. I see where people are coming from by hating some of the design choices in this film. King Koopa, Goombas, and Iggy are not human beings. There's nothing in Mario that would imply that they are. I don't know why they didn't at least have King Koopa transform into a dragon or something. But these are small things when you consider the larger film. The reason I like this movie is because the ideas in the story are fairly interesting. There's good trope use. At the beginning of the film, they establish the unborn Daisy as a sort of "child of destiny" by handing her egg off to some nuns. The nuns, of course, believe the child is from God (as opposed to being from otherworldly dinosaur men). You never expected to see something like that out of a Mario film, eh? But it's gets even better as it tells more about how Daisy has always felt "drawn" to dinosaurs, then establishes this alternate world where dinosaurs still reign supreme. I could elaborate more, but I don't want to spoil too much of the story for those who haven't seen it. You have to wonder if David Icke watched this movie and thought, "Sounds real to me!" and came up with his Reptilian theories. Watching this movie from that perspective creates a whole new level of entertainment value for it. Anyway, I think this film is unjustly despised. It's not my favorite movie ever, but I really do love it.

Such a great movie!! And no one from this century has ever even seen it. I couldn’t get my younger family members to turn away though!! It’s true the 90s were the best time for movies.

As you probably read in all of the other reviews, alot of mario and nintendo fans think that this film is poor and ridiculous because the characters in no way resemble theyre 2d counterparts. Why is that a bad thing?, to translate the world from the game exactly into a medium such as cinema would have been impossible, and have required an amount of CGI and hard to implement items (such as hitting boxes with your head) which could have not been integrated (or developed at the time) well into a movie. In my opinion what the actual movie was like is much better than any thing they could have done which exactly was true to the mario world. It is much more interesting because you can still see you're favourite characters and also experience how they would be existing in the real world and dealing with real problems such as lack of plumbing jobs etc. Now onto the actual plot, Although its a little sillier than some people would like in places it is a really interesting and fun film, the mario and luigi team of "Bob hoskins" and "John Leguiziamo" provide a very good base for the film, as a whole both of them play their parts well and create a fun and believeable brother team. Again the best part of this film has to be the fact that you see all of your favourite characters brought to life, and in a zany and fun way. Yoshi is a cute CGI/puppet that is basically like a loyal puppy, mario and luigi are a charismatic plumber duo, peach is a gun toting princess,and koopa is a sleazy businessman trying to subvert and accuire the mushroom kingdom. I sawthis film as a child for many of my younger years and I still enjoy it now, a must see for any mario fan and a muct see for your kids.

Vi esta película alquilada del videoclub en VHS y recuerdo que no era como el videojuego quedándome un recuerdo no muy bueno.Hoy la e adquirido por puro coleccionismo y por formar parte de mi infancia y al verla de nuevo otra vez sin recordar nada sólo puedo soltar elogios .No es fiel al videojuego pero acaso importa? Es una película muy entretenida con un presupuesto que se hace notar para la "época" .Me soprende que no sea mas cutre de lo que recordaba y me haya acabado entreteniendo.No ay que tomarselo como SUPER MARIO BROS" sino como una pelicula de aventuras.El precio de 12 euros es alto pero la nostalgia y tenerla en mi videoteca en formato fisico para volver a verla lo vale.

Excelente película, dure más de 25 años sin poder verla de nuevo, solo la recuerdo cuando salía en la TV, por eso cuando la vi aquí no dudé en comprarla, aunque si bien es una mala adaptación es nostalgia pura para mi, tomen en cuenta que no viene con doblaje ni subtítulos, solo en inglés y es región 1, cosa que no fue problema para ni pero para algunos quizá si

Un mito: film così brutto da diventare leggenda!!!