Super Mario Bros ** (1993, Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis, Fiona Shaw, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson) – Classic Movie Review 10,019

Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel’s 1993 family adventure comedy Super Mario Bros is an ingenious but often dull film of the Nintendo video game, with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario Mario and Luigi Mario, the battling Brooklyn plumbers taking on crazed King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) and his minions who are after the princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) in fungus-ravaged Dinohattan.

Super Mario Bros is flashily made and fairly good fun, with another amusing Hoskins performance, but it did not perform as well as expected at the box office perhaps because of a low quota of laughs and the lack of charm in the characters and story. Children might be satisfied but there is not much for adults to enjoy.

Also in the cast are Fiona Shaw, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, Dana Kaminski, Mojo Nixon, Lance Henriksen, Gianni Russo, Francesca P Roberts, Sylvia Harman, Desiree Marie Velez, Andrea Powell, John Fifer, Don Lake, Terry Finn and Mike Harding.

Dennis Hopper recalled: ‘My six-year-old son said “Dad, I think you’re probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros?” And I said “Well Henry, I did that so you could have shoes”. And he said “Dad, I don’t need shoes that badly.”

It is written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runte, Ed Solomon, based on the Nintendo video game.

It is a smart piece of work technically. The costumes (Joseph A Porro) and make-up (Jeff Goodwin, Vincent J Guastini, Rob Burman) are worth a little round of applause.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,019

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