Super Mario Bros. The Movie - Positives - Rerez

When I was a kid Super Mario Bros. the movie was one of my all-time favorite films. But when I grew up everybody started to tell me:

Super Mario Bros. the movie’s the worst film ever made in the history of the video game medium! It does everything wrong! It's got a bad story! Bad acting! Bad special effects! Everything about it is the complete opposite of good! It is the worst film ever made in the history of movies! It's complete and utter shit!

Yeah, exactly like that and that sucks because I think that this movie has been greatly overlooked. A lot of people just think it's crap for no other reason then they just think it's crap but today I'm going to prove to you that this movie is worth watching because it's a really fun film. So today we're going to be looking at Super Mario Bros. the movie. Let's find the positives.

Super Mario Bros. the movie, for those of you that don't know, is based off the Nintendo video game Super Mario Bros. that was released for the NES in 1985. Although this game is beloved the world over there's one thing that people don't seem to really acknowledge about the original game. This little cartridge has amazing gameplay but it doesn't have that good of a story. And the movie well it tried to fix that. The plot of the movie focuses on Mario and Luigi. Two Italian-American plumbers in Brooklyn, New York. Luigi randomly meets an orphan named Daisy who reveals herself to be an archaeologist that has been digging for dinosaur bones in an industrial job site that has recently been put on hold ever since the discovery of the bones. Daisy, wishing to show him what she's been doing, takes Luigi to the dig site only to discover two hired goons have sabotaged some water pipes flooding the whole operation. With Mario's help they attempt to fix the pipes when Daisy is snatched away to a hidden part of the dig site that is revealed to be a portal to another dimension. Here in this other world Daisy discovers her hidden lineage with the evil King Koopa who Mario and Luigi must save her from. People that went to go watch this movie when it first came out were fans of the video game so they were kind of upset that the movie didn't really seem like it had a lot to do with the actual game. And then on top of that a lot of people really criticized the casting choices but let's talk about that a little bit more.

The movie stars Bob Hoskins as Super Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi. Bob Hoskins is a fantastic actor having performed in Shakespearean plays and some really dramatic films that had come out in the ‘80s. He is an underrated actor and amazing in all the roles that he's ever been given. And he really sets Super Mario Bros. because to be honest when I think of Super Mario I think of Bob Hoskins. Luigi's performance is actually really good as well. These two actors have a very good chemistry together and they feel like they've lived together for their whole lives. Which is exactly the kind of performance you want from these two characters. I don't think that Mario and Luigi where why people really didn't like the casting decisions in the movie. I think it really comes down to the fact that Dennis Hopper is King Koopa. Now I'll give you that. It's a weird choice but you have to look at it from the time that this movie was made. Everybody wanted King Koopa to be some kind of animated dinosaur or some kind of dude in a suit and I don't think that would have worked. We needed a performance that was played well by somebody that had a really good background in acting. And Dennis Hopper chews the scenes in this movie and I think that's exactly why his performance works. He is a villain and a good villain at that. He's funny, he's scary, he does everything that a villain is supposed to do and then more. He really is a good choice for the role and I believe personally that his casting was a good idea. The first positive is that this movie has great performances from a great cast.

This movie could be hated on for a number of reasons but the score is amazing. Alan Silvestri composed the entire score for this movie and if you don't know who he is he's the guy that did the score for Back to the Future. His ability to compose dramatic music at certain scenes of the film really sets this movie apart from other movies that were released that were based off of video games. There are dramatic scenes in this film that actually feel pretty sad simply because Alan Silvestri's music really fits the mood of the scene. So the second positive is that this movie has a fantastic score. Something I really like about the ‘90s, before a whole bunch of movies started using CG, is that there's a lot of films that feel real. Because they shot in real locations. Because they made real props. And Super Mario Bros. really makes good use of these techniques. The environment and the world that Super Mario Bros. takes place in feels real. It feels like an actual destination that you could go to. It honestly feels like some strange place that's just completely lost and desolate and that's exactly the kind of feeling that they were going for. A lot of the visuals and practical effects are actually really cool. When you see a fireball being shot somewhere in the movie that's a real fireball. That's not some CG effect. The movie is just loaded with a whole bunch of cool visual effects and visual designs. This movie doesn't feel like a cheap low-budget flick. They put a lot of dedication into everything that they were doing. The third positive is that this movie has really good visuals.

I'm gonna get a little heat for this one but Super Mario Bros. the movie is very accurate to the story of the video games. Yes, okay okay I get it. But the truth is that it actually is and here's why. To start off the brothers are saving a princess and not just that but they're rescuing her from a castle which is known as Koopa tower. The basic plot of what Super Mario Bros. the game is all about is pretty much covered right there. But the people behind this movie put way more into it. The walls and architecture inside the tower are composed of blocks and triangles recreating the look and feel of many of the levels of the Super Mario game. The brothers eventually look exactly like they do in the game wearing their trademark green and red suits. Yoshi is in the movie and he uses his tongue as a weapon. There's shy guys, bob-ombs and fireballs just like from the game. And the city streets are practically littered with game references all over. And most of the world is covered in a fungus due to something that King Koopa had done causing this to become the Mushroom Kingdom. I could go on forever. But I think what makes people upset the most is that Mario isn't saving Princess Peach. This is where I introduce one of the movie's most interesting and unknown facts. In the movie Mario rescues his girlfriend Daniella who, along with a bunch of other women, have been kidnapped being mistaken for Daisy. In the film they only ever called her Daniella but according to the background materials for the movie her full name is Daniella Pauline Verducci. Daniella is actually Pauline the woman Mario is trying to save in the original Donkey Kong. Also Mario's corporate nemesis during some of the final scenes in the movie gets hit with a devolution gun that turns him into a chimp. This too is also supposed to be a reference to Donkey Kong as it basically alludes that Scapelli is the big ape. Basically this shows you that the movie attempted to reference not only Super Mario Bros. but also the original Donkey Kong, Mario's first appearance in a video game. This movie totally makes references to the video game and not only that but the film makes references in the story to other Mario video games. So the fourth positive is that this movie has a lot to do with the Super Mario Bros. game.

Super Mario Bros. the movie is a really good popcorn flick. It might not be Citizen Kane, it might not even be Gone with the Wind, but it's just a film that you can sit down and enjoy. I understand that a lot of times nowadays we like to demonize older, sometimes bad, films just because it's fun but this movie doesn't really deserve that. It deserves to be sat down and enjoyed just as a good story because that's exactly what it is.

---

Follow me on Steemit @Rerez for more gaming posts!