It’s an interesting question regarding why this movie wasn’t as liked as it almost certainly should have been. You had a massively popular character that almost everyone was either familiar with having played the game, or familiar with having had kids that played the game.
I honestly think the reason it wasn’t as popular as it should have been was because one hadn’t become the other quite yet.
So maybe the movie was released before its time. I would say that if it were released now, all of the kids who were Mario addicts that now have kids that may be playing something with Mario in it (god knows there’s a TON of Mario games out there now) would BOTH probably enjoy the game.
I remember watching this movie in the theater and being pretty confused. I was a kid of 9 at the time so some of the smaller references (Hopper’s hands, his “s’s,” etc) went above my head, but I caught things like the walls and the obvious references like having Toad be a character.
The good thing about a 9 year old watching this movie? The adult references ALSO went over my head. Like a lot of entertainment at the time (Ren & Stimpy, for instance), there were obvious things for the kids and there were more adult jokes and references that most kids won’t get or, possibly, don’t care about. I recognized the stripped in SMB, but paid no attention to it because strippers are in a ton of movies, but how many movie have Mario in it? I had my priorities in order.
But my parents didn’t play Mario. My dad liked Duck Hunt and trying to get Robbie the Robot to play Gyromite with him. That must have not been too successful, because I don’t remember ever seeing Robbie outside his box. My mom looked at the Nintendo not as an entertainment possibility for her, but what it really was: an electronic godsend of a baby-sitter.
So the movie adaptation of Mario was made with adults in mind, but released at a time when adults weren’t the biggest base of fans. They probably brought their kids to it because, hey, it’s what their kids are playing right now, right? But then the kids aren’t the target audience and the parents probably couldn’t care less about the movie or the references.
I remember being driven home after seeing the movie. I thought Yoshi was cool and that it was fun to see the brothers in real life. When we got home, my brother and I pretended to be Mario and Luigi, and then promptly fought over who got to be whom. But my dad just said the movie was stupid.
He had played Mario, but to a limited extent, and I think he may be a pretty great sampling of what most adults thought of the movie.
So yes, I think the real culprit is the time it was released. The young impressionable children heard about how bad the movie was, then they grew up either never giving it a chance or never giving it ANOTHER chance. This is probably one of the more rare examples of a movie that gets BETTER when you get older because you recognize more things and get more of the humor. Most movies from your childhood was way better back when you didn’t see EVERYTHING. Batman (1989) was an AMAZING movie to a 5 year old (the first movie I ever saw in a theater and the moment when I realized I fucking LOVED movies) but to me now as an adult, I have big problems with it. Mainly the fact that Bruce Wayne is an idiot, and Vicki Vale may be the worst human being ever.
I mean, Batman saved your life multiple times and you STILL try to take a picture of Batman’s face? And you can’t give Bruce Wayne some privacy with his personal life? You have to stalk him like some psycho girlfriend, use you resources at the newspaper to dig up his painful past and constantly guilt him?
Awful.
Sorry about that, got a little off course at the end. 😉
That’s a really good point. While now the folks watching the movie are people who grew up with Mario, back then the majority of the theater goers were still kids. The parents that brought them, for the most part, weren’t really into video games. So, while if the movie was released now it would appeal to both audiences because the parents grew up with games and most likely, they are introducing them to their kids.
It simply was ahead of it’s time but unfortunately, there are still some people who refuse to go back and give it another view. I know there are a couple of movies I hated as a child but went back to watch when I got older and enjoyed. I hated it because I didn’t understand it. I also was much more impatient back then whereas now, I don’t mind a slow moving story as long as it is interesting and eventually goes somewhere.
On the other hand, like you said, some movies don’t age well. You go back and look at the first Tim Burton Batman vs Batman Begins and you see how hokey it was. Keaton did a great job but the movie felt like they wanted to be serious but still ended up campy. (I still say Batman Returns is way better than Batman) Vicki Vale was terrible. I wanted The Joker to drop her off a building.
The Agony Booth did a good covering of Batman Returns recently. I had never considered that Batman killed a LOT of people through these two movies, even though his one rule was that he wouldn’t kill anyone.
Funny how flexible that rule is when you go for irony when you set a guy dressed as the devil on fire. 😉
You rock for making this review! This movie has way too few defenders. When I was a kid, I never had a console so I had no problem with this not being “true to the movie” (a notion you have successfully debunked here) and I loved it. People took this movie way to seriously. Hoskins was great and it’s really sad to see awesome actors diss their memorable performances just because the movie turned out to have been unpopular. Hopper is also very memorable. The behind the scenes story about the troubled production was very informative and makes me appreciate the movie even more. It always looked like a Blade Runnerish movie and now I know why! Thanks again!
Thanks! I just wanted to give this movie a fair shake. So many people scream about how horrible it is, etc, etc. Its nowhere near a bad movie. Glad you enjoyed it!
This is one of my favorite episodes because it shows how just because something isn’t what you want (at the time) doesn’t mean it’s bad. Although I haven’t yet re-watched this flick, it’s on my radar.
I was still a kid when this came out and I can’t say I was disappointed (like with TMNT 3) I was simply confused and didn’t have the intellect for the subtleness of the source material or adult themes.
So let’s say they went in the direction of pure fantasy and had Danny Devito stomping on toads, kicking turtles around and killing plants…better movie? Like that wouldn’t have gotten old in about 20 minutes and then it’s a wait for Mario to dump Koopa in lava and save the princess. I think that movie would have easily gotten just as panned and forgotten as well.
Do you think if this movie concept of Mario would have been released in the late 90’s/early 2000’s more people would have appreciated it?
Exactly. I actually like a movie that is unexpected. I really think that if the movie was the “Danny Devito jumping on things” it would have been watched, disliked, and forgotten. This, for all its troubles in production, became something else. It’s a movie with a pretty dedicated fanbase and people are still talking about it. There are some successful movies that don’t even have that.
The 20th anniversary screening is coming up and John Leguizamo is going to be there. I know he disliked his time working on the film, aside from his time sexing up the lovely Samantha Mathis, but I wonder if he will talk about anything he did like with the film. If he went back and showed it to his kids for example.
I don’t know. It seems that the general public is quick to bash things these days. Everything sucks and even things that are very good, people still will find things about it that the claim “sucks”. People seem to have forgotten how to just enjoy something. So, I think if it came out it the 2000s it most likely would have been attacked even harder than it was in the 90s.
I always wished they made SMB The Movie into a game based on the movie based on the game. But this movie game would fall more in line with the movie (maybe an adventure based RPG).
I would be so up for that. Considering they made the Street Fighter Movie the game based on the movie, making a SMB game based on the movie would have been cool. Although I think NIN went about as far as they wanted with the license, which is why they are super controlling with them now. I would have rather had the SMB movie game over the CDi Zeldas lol.
I would have liked a Japanese fantasy meets New York kitsch version:
Nicholas Turturro (Mario), John Turturro (Luigi), Ron Perlman (Bowser),
Mira Sorvino (Princess Daisy), Danny Woodburn (Toad), and Paul Sorvino
(King).
Director (Jay Dubin), Screenwriters (Larry Hama and Ann
Nocenti), Director of Photography (Hiro Narita), Production Design (Eiko
Ishioka and Wayne White), Music (Angelo Badalamenti), Creature Design
(Screaming Mad George and the Chiodo Bros), and Action Design (Keita
Amemiya and Jeff Imada).
I was a 10-year-old boy back in 1993 when Super Mario Brothers came out in theaters. Of course, I had the NES, the SNES, and handful of Super Mario Bros. games. And OF COURSE I went to the theaters and watched it. Looking back at it now, 22 years later, it still holds up well. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this film that I should track it down and watch it again.
So sad to see this was hit with a copyright strike, tried to show it to a friend to support my argument in defense of this movie. Hopefully YouTube will come to their senses at some point and allow movie reviews. I appreciate all of your awesome content, cheers.
follow:
I wanted to give a huge thanks to Eric for doing the “50” for the intro. Thanks so much! I really appreciate it.
Half-life 2 maybe taking some influence from the super mario movie just blew my mind.
I know, it’s crazy right? I almost couldn’t believe it myself but there it is.
It’s an interesting question regarding why this movie wasn’t as liked as it almost certainly should have been. You had a massively popular character that almost everyone was either familiar with having played the game, or familiar with having had kids that played the game.
I honestly think the reason it wasn’t as popular as it should have been was because one hadn’t become the other quite yet.
So maybe the movie was released before its time. I would say that if it were released now, all of the kids who were Mario addicts that now have kids that may be playing something with Mario in it (god knows there’s a TON of Mario games out there now) would BOTH probably enjoy the game.
I remember watching this movie in the theater and being pretty confused. I was a kid of 9 at the time so some of the smaller references (Hopper’s hands, his “s’s,” etc) went above my head, but I caught things like the walls and the obvious references like having Toad be a character.
The good thing about a 9 year old watching this movie? The adult references ALSO went over my head. Like a lot of entertainment at the time (Ren & Stimpy, for instance), there were obvious things for the kids and there were more adult jokes and references that most kids won’t get or, possibly, don’t care about. I recognized the stripped in SMB, but paid no attention to it because strippers are in a ton of movies, but how many movie have Mario in it? I had my priorities in order.
But my parents didn’t play Mario. My dad liked Duck Hunt and trying to get Robbie the Robot to play Gyromite with him. That must have not been too successful, because I don’t remember ever seeing Robbie outside his box. My mom looked at the Nintendo not as an entertainment possibility for her, but what it really was: an electronic godsend of a baby-sitter.
So the movie adaptation of Mario was made with adults in mind, but released at a time when adults weren’t the biggest base of fans. They probably brought their kids to it because, hey, it’s what their kids are playing right now, right? But then the kids aren’t the target audience and the parents probably couldn’t care less about the movie or the references.
I remember being driven home after seeing the movie. I thought Yoshi was cool and that it was fun to see the brothers in real life. When we got home, my brother and I pretended to be Mario and Luigi, and then promptly fought over who got to be whom. But my dad just said the movie was stupid.
He had played Mario, but to a limited extent, and I think he may be a pretty great sampling of what most adults thought of the movie.
So yes, I think the real culprit is the time it was released. The young impressionable children heard about how bad the movie was, then they grew up either never giving it a chance or never giving it ANOTHER chance. This is probably one of the more rare examples of a movie that gets BETTER when you get older because you recognize more things and get more of the humor. Most movies from your childhood was way better back when you didn’t see EVERYTHING. Batman (1989) was an AMAZING movie to a 5 year old (the first movie I ever saw in a theater and the moment when I realized I fucking LOVED movies) but to me now as an adult, I have big problems with it. Mainly the fact that Bruce Wayne is an idiot, and Vicki Vale may be the worst human being ever.
I mean, Batman saved your life multiple times and you STILL try to take a picture of Batman’s face? And you can’t give Bruce Wayne some privacy with his personal life? You have to stalk him like some psycho girlfriend, use you resources at the newspaper to dig up his painful past and constantly guilt him?
Awful.
Sorry about that, got a little off course at the end. 😉
That’s a really good point. While now the folks watching the movie are people who grew up with Mario, back then the majority of the theater goers were still kids. The parents that brought them, for the most part, weren’t really into video games. So, while if the movie was released now it would appeal to both audiences because the parents grew up with games and most likely, they are introducing them to their kids.
It simply was ahead of it’s time but unfortunately, there are still some people who refuse to go back and give it another view. I know there are a couple of movies I hated as a child but went back to watch when I got older and enjoyed. I hated it because I didn’t understand it. I also was much more impatient back then whereas now, I don’t mind a slow moving story as long as it is interesting and eventually goes somewhere.
On the other hand, like you said, some movies don’t age well. You go back and look at the first Tim Burton Batman vs Batman Begins and you see how hokey it was. Keaton did a great job but the movie felt like they wanted to be serious but still ended up campy. (I still say Batman Returns is way better than Batman) Vicki Vale was terrible. I wanted The Joker to drop her off a building.
The Agony Booth did a good covering of Batman Returns recently. I had never considered that Batman killed a LOT of people through these two movies, even though his one rule was that he wouldn’t kill anyone.
Funny how flexible that rule is when you go for irony when you set a guy dressed as the devil on fire. 😉
For a guy who isn’t supposed to kill anyone…he kills everyone!
I do find it funny how even Tim Burton says his Batman movies are nowhere near as good as the Nolan ones.
You rock for making this review! This movie has way too few defenders. When I was a kid, I never had a console so I had no problem with this not being “true to the movie” (a notion you have successfully debunked here) and I loved it. People took this movie way to seriously. Hoskins was great and it’s really sad to see awesome actors diss their memorable performances just because the movie turned out to have been unpopular. Hopper is also very memorable. The behind the scenes story about the troubled production was very informative and makes me appreciate the movie even more. It always looked like a Blade Runnerish movie and now I know why! Thanks again!
Thanks! I just wanted to give this movie a fair shake. So many people scream about how horrible it is, etc, etc. Its nowhere near a bad movie. Glad you enjoyed it!
This is one of my favorite episodes because it shows how just because something isn’t what you want (at the time) doesn’t mean it’s bad. Although I haven’t yet re-watched this flick, it’s on my radar.
I was still a kid when this came out and I can’t say I was disappointed (like with TMNT 3) I was simply confused and didn’t have the intellect for the subtleness of the source material or adult themes.
So let’s say they went in the direction of pure fantasy and had Danny Devito stomping on toads, kicking turtles around and killing plants…better movie? Like that wouldn’t have gotten old in about 20 minutes and then it’s a wait for Mario to dump Koopa in lava and save the princess. I think that movie would have easily gotten just as panned and forgotten as well.
Do you think if this movie concept of Mario would have been released in the late 90’s/early 2000’s more people would have appreciated it?
Exactly. I actually like a movie that is unexpected. I really think that if the movie was the “Danny Devito jumping on things” it would have been watched, disliked, and forgotten. This, for all its troubles in production, became something else. It’s a movie with a pretty dedicated fanbase and people are still talking about it. There are some successful movies that don’t even have that.
The 20th anniversary screening is coming up and John Leguizamo is going to be there. I know he disliked his time working on the film, aside from his time sexing up the lovely Samantha Mathis, but I wonder if he will talk about anything he did like with the film. If he went back and showed it to his kids for example.
I don’t know. It seems that the general public is quick to bash things these days. Everything sucks and even things that are very good, people still will find things about it that the claim “sucks”. People seem to have forgotten how to just enjoy something. So, I think if it came out it the 2000s it most likely would have been attacked even harder than it was in the 90s.
i have visit the webside and it is indide awesome
Lena’s blue outfit reminds me of Elizabeth’s second outfit from Bioshock Infinite
dont hate me for liking house of the dead
I always wished they made SMB The Movie into a game based on the movie based on the game. But this movie game would fall more in line with the movie (maybe an adventure based RPG).
I would be so up for that. Considering they made the Street Fighter Movie the game based on the movie, making a SMB game based on the movie would have been cool. Although I think NIN went about as far as they wanted with the license, which is why they are super controlling with them now. I would have rather had the SMB movie game over the CDi Zeldas lol.
I would have liked a Japanese fantasy meets New York kitsch version:
Nicholas Turturro (Mario), John Turturro (Luigi), Ron Perlman (Bowser),
Mira Sorvino (Princess Daisy), Danny Woodburn (Toad), and Paul Sorvino
(King).
Director (Jay Dubin), Screenwriters (Larry Hama and Ann
Nocenti), Director of Photography (Hiro Narita), Production Design (Eiko
Ishioka and Wayne White), Music (Angelo Badalamenti), Creature Design
(Screaming Mad George and the Chiodo Bros), and Action Design (Keita
Amemiya and Jeff Imada).
If they ever do it again I still think their best bet is to do it animated.
I was a 10-year-old boy back in 1993 when Super Mario Brothers came out in theaters. Of course, I had the NES, the SNES, and handful of Super Mario Bros. games. And OF COURSE I went to the theaters and watched it. Looking back at it now, 22 years later, it still holds up well. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this film that I should track it down and watch it again.
There is a bluray (and it looks great) but its region 2 only. 🙁
better review than the gaming historien
So sad to see this was hit with a copyright strike, tried to show it to a friend to support my argument in defense of this movie. Hopefully YouTube will come to their senses at some point and allow movie reviews. I appreciate all of your awesome content, cheers.
Copyright claim shut down the video? For shame, youtubes. For shame.
What happened to this episode? I love this one!