Super Mario Bros. (35mm)
March 27, 2025
Two Brooklyn plumbers, Mario and Luigi, must travel to another dimension to rescue a princess from the evil dictator King Koopa and stop him from taking over the world. Presented in partnership with Scarecrow Video's Unstreamable.
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Imagine dropping acid in a Chuck E. Cheese while reading cyberpunk fiction—that's Super Mario Bros, the original one. This gloriously unhinged 1993 adaptation transforms the cheerful plumbers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) into dimension-hopping warriors fighting evolved dinosaurs in a dystopian parallel New York. Dennis Hopper, sporting a lizard mullet, gnaws through scenery as King Koopa while Fiona Shaw vamps it up as his second-in-command.
Nothing about this film makes sense, and that's why it works. The sets look like Blade Runner had a baby with a Nintendo reject, the plot treats "physics" as more of a suggestion than a science, and somewhere along the way, someone decided Mario should have a thing for muscle-bound lady cops. Hollywood and Nintendo tried to understand each other, but it became a spectacular, very memorable misfire.
Fair warning: If you're expecting faithful video game adaptation, look elsewhere. But if you want to see what happens when $48 million gets handed to filmmakers who've clearly never played Mario in their lives, you're in for a treat.
- Director: Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton
- Principal Cast: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper
- Country: United Kingdom, USA, Japan, France
- Year: 1993
- Running Time: 104 min.
- Producer: Jake Eberts, Roland Joffé
- Screenplay: Parker Bennett, Terry Runte, Ed Solomon
- Cinematographers: Dean Semler
- Editors: Mark Goldblatt
- Music: Alan Silvestri
- Filmography: D.O.A (1988)
- Language: English
- Format: 35mm