Product: Super Mario Bros. [VHS] (1993)
Rating: 5.0
Great piece of Mario memorabilia
I loved this movie. The crew did an excellent job of adapting elements from the three Super Mario Bros. games and Super Mario World to the inherent limitations of the medium of film. The characters were well-thought-out; their personalities were just as I had imagined them. Mario likes to be the boss of things, Luigi is shy, Koopa is a Hitler type, etc. (Well, all right, I didn't imagine Toad as a revolutionary. But that's about it!) The acting was great (OK, except for Princess Daisy). Bob Hoskins does the Brooklyn thing so well I never would have guessed he was British. In fact, my only real complaints about the movie are: 1) there should have been more mushrooms, 2) Mario is supposed to have dark curly hair, and 3) the Mario Bros. should have put on their Mario and Luigi costumes sooner. But those are minor compared to how great the movie is!I realize I am in the minority when I say I loved this movie. Many were disappointed to find that the movie is not as much like the game as they had hoped. Yet, of the three Super Mario Bros. games, no two are similar. Mario doesn't even look the same from one game to the next. There is absolutely no logical consistency between the games. How does the world of the first game fit in with the third? It doesn't. So why should the movie fit in with any of the games? (There are actually a few subtle similarities between the movie and the games; for a complete list, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._%28film%29)The dinosaur theme was based on Super Mario World, which took place in "Dinosaur Land." I agree, having dinosaurs evolve into humans who pass unnoticed in New York and think like present-day Americans (and even speak English!) is a bit far-fetched, but it's fantasy. We don't nit-pick the magic in Harry Potter, why should we nit-pick this? Even many who can look past this scientific flaw find the movie too "serious." Given the popularity of movies about the Holocaust and other atrocities of human history, how can anyone make the claim that the Super Mario Bros. movie is too "serious?"If you don't expect it to be exactly like the games, you'll love it as much as I do.