The Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Average Rating: 3.7/10
Reviews Counted: 32
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 27
Despite flashy sets and special effects, Super Mario Bros. is too light on story and substance to be anything more than a novelty.
Average Rating: 4.5/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 6
Despite flashy sets and special effects, Super Mario Bros. is too light on story and substance to be anything more than a novelty.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.4/5
User Ratings: 172,059
Movie Info
The huge success of the video games featuring animated Italian plumbers the Mario Brothers led to this $42 million live action movie. The two brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) live in Manhattan and are chasing Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis), who wears a necklace made from a meteor fragment. Its powers can free a race of reptilian creatures from the city's sewers. The villainous ruler of the creatures, who are descendants of dinosaurs, is King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). Koopa has kidnapped
Sep 8, 1990 Wide
Jun 3, 2003
Cast
-
Bob Hoskins
Mario Mario -
John Leguizamo
Luigi Mario -
Dennis Hopper
King Koopa -
Samantha Mathis
Daisy -
Fisher Stevens
Iggy -
Fiona Shaw
Lena -
Richard Edson
Spike -
Dana Kaminski
Daniella -
Mojo Nixon
Toad -
Gianni Russo
Scapelli -
Francesca Roberts
Bertha -
Lance Henriksen
The King -
Sylvia Harman
Old Lady -
Lucy Alpaugh
Nun -
Dan Castellaneta
Narrator -
Terry Finn
Hat Check Girl -
Don Lake
Sgt. Simon -
Wallace Merck
Goomba -
Thomas Merdis
Goomba -
Matt Nikko
Japanese Businessman... -
Jeffrey Pillars
Devo Technician -
Robert D. Raiford
T.V. Announcer -
Kevin West
Devo Controller -
-
Frank Welker
Creatures -
Harry Murphy
Reporter #1 -
Michael Lynch
Goomba -
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All Critics (32) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (5) | Rotten (27)
Scenery rushes by, noise blares, characters pop up wearing new costumes that they couldn't possibly have had time to change into as they eluded their adversaries.
Top CriticUltimately, it's one more stop in the arcade, beckoning, waiting to soak up time and money.
Unfortunately, the highlights are sporadic.
Wildly overproduced and derivative.
It will baffle kids, bore adolescents, and depress adults.
This film's two directors and three screenwriters have clearly tried hard to breathe life into their nonstory, to the point where the film's intensity seems more crazy than cynical.
There are none of the game's hidden pleasures, such as booby traps or treasure caches, and the casting is peculiar.
Even moviegoers who don't own Nintendo (if any such species exists) will thoroughly enjoy these superheroes. And chances are, this is only the beginning of their film exploits.
Devotees of the game may derive some pleasure from seeing its obstacles given quasi-flesh and set in motion, but that inert pleasure soon pales in a torrent of none-too-special effects, confusing story line and characters without personalities.
Bizarre, replete in often stunning special effects and verrrry strange from the outset, Super Mario Bros. is curiously entertaining, even though it often makes little sense.
Bombs explode, cars careen and crash, people leap from dimension to dimension in this blaring, glaring picture. Kids might get a charge out of the mayhem. I got the vapors.
As the ad campaign helpfully pointed out, "this ain't no game, it's a live-action thrill ride." Half-true: it is surely not a game, for it is typically held that games are pleasurable.
Game over, man.
Despite eye-catching sets and smart casting, this first feature-length film to be adapted from a video game is a bloated muddle.
While it isn't as bad as it was initially built up to be, it is an early example of why videogames don't make good movies.
Super Mario Bros. is about as playful and challenging as an unplugged pinball machine.
They should have used cheat codes to make this a winner.
If the very expensive special-effects extravaganza Super Mario Bros. is any indication, we probably won't be seeing Legend of Zelda: The Movie very soon.
The movie is the trailer, shown over and over and over again.
Audience Reviews for The Super Mario Bros.
Super Reviewer
Movies Like The Super Mario Bros.
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- Iggy: Was she corpulent, very corpulent?
- Luigi Mario: No, she was just really round.
- Spike: Ah, Big Bertha, the bouncer at the Boom-Boom Bar!
-
- Daisy: (in unison) Are you all right?
- Luigi Mario: (in unison) Are you all right?
-
- Mario Mario: Where the hell are we? This is crazy!
-
- Luigi Mario: No. It's Luigi Mario. See because we're brothers, we gotta have the same last name.
-
- Luigi Mario: I got a feeling we're not in Brooklyn no more.
-
- Mario Mario: Come & get it, lizard breath!
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Foreign Titles
- Super Mario Bros. (DE)
- Super Mario Bros. (UK)
The main issue with this film is the blatant fact it has NOTHING to do with the classic videogame. Apart from the two leads and the villain there is zero here to please anyone unless you have a metal and dinosaur fetish. True Hoskins does look wonderfully like 'Mario' in his red n blue jumpsuit and I did quite like the sliminess of Hopper as 'Koopa' but that's as far as it goes.
The whole thing is just so damn odd, its a corny thing to say but its basically 'Mad Max' 'Highlander II' and 'Blade Runner' styled futuristic visuals aimed at children but utter nonsense. I guess this could be forgiven if the visuals were good or original but its all so ugly and scrappy looking. As if no one could really be too bothered so they just tossed a load of sparking metal, badly dressed extras and the most bizarre designed cars I've ever seen...everywhere.
Nothing really makes much sense in any way whatsoever, sure its a kids film and 'Mario Bros' isn't a stern reality based concept but some of the decisions in this film!. The effects of course are horribly dated now which you can't poke fun at really but geez its nasty!. Early CGI effects, terrible stunts with obvious wire work, awful costumes, the fungus king and awful hairstyles...yet the dino model/puppet of 'Yoshi' looks good and moves quite nicely.
It really does feel as if the bigwigs had gotten halfway through making one film and suddenly decided to turn it into a Mario film for kids. Just take the tonne of crappy looking junk they already had going and stick in some very loose references to Nintendo's big franchise and voila! instant Mario Bros movie hurrah!. I really believe this was the set of 'Lawnmower Man 2' transformed at the eleventh hour, and they still fudged that up too.
Its not too often that a film is really so bad, really its not!! and this was suppose to be a blockbuster and franchise builder!. Sure there are bad films but this is really really quite terrible in all areas with virtually nothing to save its ass. I did quite like the use of the old Nintendo Super Scope 6. But was that a clever little easter egg wink/nod for the legion of NES/SNES players or did they really think they could fool everyone into thinking it was a proper purpose build prop?. I'll let you decide.