Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 27 : Super Mario Brothers

God what an awful film.

I’m really tempted to just let that stand as not only was the viewing experience of this film painful remembering anything about it is painful as well.

It’s well known that Hollywood – or I should say the movie industry in general has never made a good film based on a video game – that Mortal Kombat is about the best of a sorry lot is saying something and oh yes anybody who in this day and age give Uwe Boll any money to make a film is either an idiot or as cynical as Boll (I can put any piece of junk up on screen and provided it has a game attached to it make money for the first two weeks).

Anyway – the world of the Mario Brothers games is that of bright primary colors and silliness really – again and again the story is that princess peach is captured and the brothers have to hop over mushrooms collect coins and other such antics to rescue her.

Okay – you have bob Hoskins as Mario – and John Leguizamo as Lugi – the Mario Brothers who are plumbers trying to make in the cut throat world of plumbing in new York,  they keep racing to the scene of a plumbing problem and keep getting beaten out by plumbers with a faster van.

The hell? Did any of the screen writers know a plumber? I live in New York and while there are some hazards to life and limb one of this is not plumbing vans driven at top speed with reckless disregard for traffic conditions and pedestrians.

Actually, in my experience, getting a plumber to your house is more like:

            “Hi, Super plumbers?”

            “Yes can I help you?”

            “Well yes the faucet in the kitchen has well sort of blown up and it’s spraying water all over the place – “

            “okay just turn the water off – the master should be under the sink and we’ll be there in about an hour.”

            About an hour of course being plumber speak for ‘sometime today”.

            Actually I’ve never really had a bad time with plumbers they are able to handle things like pipes and wrenches and water, all of which are a bit out of my league – I’m not as bad as my father who could probably figure a way out to electrocute himself with a candle but I know enough to stay far away from equipment involving running water.

And what does this have to do with the mushroom kingdom.

Nothing really.

Actually before we see the brothers in action there is a voice over that says in effect the dinosaurs were wiped out by a asteroid that hit the earth were Brooklyn now stands – but the force  of the explosion was so great that is created a separate pocket universe where the dinosaurs continued to live and evolve. But as s place to live it kind of sucks so they are trying to find a way to bridge the gap between universes to take over our world.

We’re not told this at the start of the film – this is what we’re told after a bit – I suspect that if we’d have been told this folks would have gotten up and walked out of the theater right then and there.

So there’s this kid dropped off at an orphanage – turns out to be the daughter of the king of the pocket universe – which when we see it is a grim awful place – Blade runner style dystopia with fungus about as well. There is a secret in the fungus as well. It’s sentient and there’s a reason for that.

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves and if anybody can figured out why in hell they decided to try and shoehorn Super Mario Brothers into this please speak up.

Seriously the whole tone of the film is just awful – it’s like they tried to merge Winnie the Pooh with the road warrior.

Rounding out the cast we have Dennis Hopper who plays the main heavy King Kopa – Hopper does sort of okay here – still it’s clear he is entering his will read out of the phone book with my strange inflection for money stage of his acting career.

As part of his plan Kopa will invade our earth and use his evolving-de-evolution ray to turn all humans into chimps – or something – he does it to about 3 people before he’s dragged back to the pocket universe to have his last confrontation with Mario and Luigi.

The film just seems to take the wrong turn with everything – the goombas – mushrooms in the game – huge dinosaur folks in coats with little teen tiny heads. Real nightmare fuel for kids – which amazing enough this movie was aimed at or at least the producers thought so – I think the director thought he was making Mario Bothers vs. Alien or some such.

There must have been quite a long silence at the end of the screen of the final cut for the head of the studio.

            “What do you think?”

            “I think we have a bomb on our hands.”

            “A Bob-omb?”

            “oh shut up”

            Speaking of Bob-omb – a bit from the game – the toss this in the movie and at the last moment you see on the bottom of the bomb’s shoes – Rebok. Dumbest product placement ever? You decide.

Did I mention that the king of the little pocket universe has been turned into the fungus that seems into every corner of the world? And that he’s cured in the end. Still in addition to the Blade Runner style grit and smoke – wet slimy fungus is everywhere. I think the set designer or dresser had an issue with fungus.

            Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo soon figured out what a turkey they were in and did the best they could – and drank heavily during the shoot – probably not on the set they are professionals but the second the whistle blew – down the hatch. I can understand Bob Hoskins said this was the worst film he ever made.

            This of course is neglecting the stereotype portrayal of people from Brooklyn as idiot goomba loudmouths with women with big hair whose voices can cut steel.

            Just an awful film. I’m sorry I saw it.

            Enjoy with really good Italian food – the movie’s going hurt so you might as well enjoy something.