The Super Mario Bros. (1993)

So could this be one of the worst films ever made?? yep we have a contender. Huge on hype and anticipation but hugely sole destroying upon release. Its hard to comprehend what the creators of this film were looking to achieve, the style, looks, soundtrack, plot, basically any links to the classic legendary videogame are none existent.

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.