Super Mario Bros.

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Dominic

Wow, it's been a while. This one is such a mixed bag. The biggest problem with it is that is just feels completely wrong for the franchise. But it's hard to think of what they could have done with a live action shoot back then and make it at all believable. It's a strange dark grimy city in a parallel world that doesn't much and resemble the bright shiny world of Mario where you jump on creatures heads and collect coins to save a princess.

What we do get is Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo doing their best to keep up, Dennis Hopper being delightfully nuts, some cool dinosaurs and creatures (even though they don't look much like their game counterparts) and very very early CG effects. Oh and Fiona Shaw, I always forget she's in this.

I instantly recognised Alan Silvestri's compositional style in the very comedic score. Pity they didn't use more themes from the game. Pity they didn't use more anything from the game really. It's the first video game adaptation I know of and it doesn't set the bar too high.

But some of the action is alright. I can see what they were trying to do with the story adaptation but it's not entirely successful. It's a strange mix.