SUPER MARIO BROS (1993) U.K Blu-Ray Review

"It'sa Me...Mario"...we all know those words, said by the tiny Italian plumber who never actually does any plumbing but instead spends his time rescuing princesses and bashing his head on floating blocks...so what if i told you that back in 1993 Mario and his bro Luigi had their own film...well they did and i reviewed the upcoming Blu-ray from Second Sight. Check my words after le jump!.........



Second Sight films, a great little indie label that has been knocking out some incredible releases these last few years including...Streets of Fire, Re-Animator, From Beyond and Return Of The Living Dead are set to release the 1993 cult film video game adaptation of Super Mario Bros on Nov 3^rd for the first time on Blu-ray. I take a look at the upcoming Blu-ray release after the jump, the question is, does it stand up 21 years after it's original release?....

Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon...just a few names of well known 80s and 90s video-games that transferred from the console to the big screen, but these film were hardly successful, well I say each film but Mortal Kombat was actually a surprise hit when it came out in 1995 but the other two never hit the high numbers. Street Fighter suffered from bad casting choices, a stupid plot and some truly terrible dialogue and Double Dragon didn't even hit U.K cinema screens but made it's début on Home Video which goes to show how little faith studio's had in the film (it's actually quite a fun little flick) but one movie, based on the highest selling game franchise of all time was released and was expected to be a huge success. In 1993 Super Mario Bros (the movie) was released to cinema and became a HUGE critical and financial FLOP!, that's right folks, the Mario movie flopped big time. Why did a film based on the insanely popular Mario franchise flop so bad?, lets take a look shall we....

With a stellar cast comprising of two legendary actors, the late Denis Hopper and the late Bob Hoskins, a young John Leguizamo and the beautiful Samantha Mathis and boasting cinematography by Mad Max 2 and Dances With Wolves DOP Dean Semlar, it should have worked but it didn't. The question is why?...let have a look at the plot for starters...

Mario and Luigi Mario are two Brooklyn plumbers who find themselves drawn into rescuing a princes in a hidden world where humans evolved from dinosaurs. Amongst a maze of pipes, neon lights and dodgy FX, Mario and Luigi go up against the evil ruler of this underground world, King Koopa to rescue Princess Daisy and prevent Koopa from taking over the world.

My god this film is terrible. It really really is. Not only do you have a hammy Dennis Hopper with terrible spiky hair and a slumming Bob Hoskins but you also have the script, a complete mess of a movie which had multiple re-writes, additional writers hired mid production and two directors who sounded like the whole thing was an absolute nightmare to work on. There's some really uneasy comedy which seems forced and two bumbling idiots who wouldn't be out of place in a 3 Stooges movie. It's like they took Laurel and Hardy and destroyed 99% of braincells. I remembered seeing Super Mario Bros back in the early 90s as a kid and at that time, like most kids, you don't really pay much attention to the actual production side because of all the shiny shiny stuff up on the screen but when you revisit the film 21 years later as a mature cinema enthusiast, this film really really sucks. I had the same problem a few months back when I revisisted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, loved it as a kid but now...awful. There is something about SMB that is still enjoyable though, maybe it's the fact that the film is a mess and best watched with a couple of pints or the fact that the film is incredibly goofy that it becomes fun. There's also the brilliant production design, yes the film has brilliant production design courtesy of David L. Snyder who worked on Bill and Ted and Blade Runner, also if the dino underworld reminds you of Demolition Man and Edgar Friendly's underground city, it's because Snyder was the production designer on that too. That was the first thing that came to my mind when re-visiting.

So my verdict on the actual film is that it's a mess, not exactly laugh out loud funny, with some terrible acting and VFX but incredible production design. I can only really recommend Super Mario Bros as a get drunk and watch film, because I barely made it through the whole thing sober. It's not a good film. It's gets a 2 from me.

So we've looked at the movie, now lets look at the disc it's self.

The Technical Stuff!

Second Sight Films have been doing some incredible releases these last few year, stand outs include Streets Of Fire, From Beyond, Return Of The Living Dead and Re-Animator to name but a few and they didn't drop the ball on Super Mario Bros, the film looks stunning, the new 1080p, 1:18:1 Aspect ratio transfer looks amazing, the colours pop, the blacks are black and there's a healthy amount of grain which is always welcome in a HD transfer so you'll get the full benefit of the picture on full HD 1080p screen. Accompanying the fantastic picture is the DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio channel and the LPCM Stereo track. The DTS-HD track sounds fantastic through both 5.1 surround system (which I tested it on) and through just the TV speakers so you can clearly hear both dialogue and Alan Silvestri's score perfectly. The LPCM stereo track is also pretty clear but you really want to watch the film in 5.1 to get the full benefit of the sound.

The Extras

Like most of Second Sight's releases, Super Mario Bros comes with some choice supplemental additions. You get a retro making of documentary from when the film was shot, a behind the scenes/Storyboard gallery, an electronic press kit and the main attraction of the extras...a 60 minute documentary on the making and disaster that befell the production. Titled This Ain't No Video Game, the documentary goes into quite a bit of detail on the pre, production and Post of the making of SMB and features interviews with producer Roland Joffe, Production Designer David L. Snyder and one of the writers, Parker Bennett who explains the original script which was more akin to Tim Burton's Batman from '89 and how they needed to make the film family friendly as it's a film based on a video-game that is played by kids. But some of the more interesting sound bites come from the two directors, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankle who both regale us with production stories and the complete balls up that happened. Also interviewed were actors Richard Edson and John Leguizamo who talk at length about working on the film, Edson about Fisher Stevens who played his comedy partner and Leguizamo talking about working with the incredible Bob Hoskins. It's the stand out feature on the disc.

Super Mario Bros comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray (BD for the first time) on Nov 3^rd in the U.K from Second Sight films. The Blu-ray is region locked to B for U.K and Europe only and the DVD is locked to R2 for U.K and Europe but in this day and age, 99% of cinephiles will have either a multi-region DVD or Blu-ray player or if you're like me, you'll have both. Anyways, Super Mario Bros drops on Nov 3^rd, the RRP is £19.99 for BD and DVD is RRP £15.99.

If you want to revisit your youth like I did then by all means go ahead, it just didn't do anything for me but the kids, the kids will eat this stuff up....i hope...

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