Review from a Mario game fan

Let’s all compare the Mario movie to the Mario game series first before we plunge into this great review!

The Game:

Super Mario Bros. Were introduced to the US in the 1980s, the plot stands that the Mario brothers were working around in Brooklyn, New York at their plumbing service, when suddenly a yelp for help brings them to the Mushroom Kingdom through their very own pipes. Bowser, the all powerful turtle dictator of the “turtle” tribe have take the Mushroom Kingdom and Princess Toadstool (Peach) hostage. This kingdom is a place where walking mushrooms and cute little creatures run around in grassy knolls. Where Goombas are about half the size of Mario, and everything except for the two brothers, and Peach are not really human.

The Movie:

Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo are the famous plumbing brothers of this movie. The Mario brothers are plotted in the same place as the game, Brooklyn, New York. But there is one slight problem. A girl name Daisy (who is SUPPOSED TO BE ONLY IN THE DONKEY KONG SERIES) and Luigi fall in love with each other. The sheer fact that Mario is about the same height as Luigi, Luigi is a weird teenager with no mustache, and that the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom is NOT Mario’s girlfriend… I think from the start of this movie, Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of Mario) would be spinning in his seat watching something like this screw up his beloved Mario Brothers. Now, we enter the Mushroom Kingdom… which is pretty much a post apocalyptic Manhattan. Where people are walking around with weird punk-rock styles of clothing, and incredibly weird hairstyles. The Goombas are about as tall as skyscrapers, Bowser (who is known as King Koopa in the movie) is a tromping along corporate president who is the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, and most of all, Yoshi is about the size of a large rat. What the makers of this film forgot to research was the entire game series. And screwing up the storyline to the game is just a big no-no to die hard Mario game fans everywhere. To make it much worse, the entire plotline is a mixture of “Super Mario Bros.” With “Super Mario World”… a story about having dinosaurs take over mankind on Earth (which is confusing since the “dinosaurs” are also human).

Now, let’s get to the review. Despite the fact that the movie is practically about ANOTHER Mario and Luigi team not related to Nintendo’s Mario Bros., the movie is actually an alright movie. Though it is children oriented, the movie is so incredibly wacky, pointless, corny, and cute that even adults can build up to love it. The acting is horrible, but it doesn’t really matter when it comes to videogame movies, besides, John Leguizamo isn’t all that of a serious actor anyways. But the point to the showing here is, that Mario and Luigi travel around the Mushroom\dinosaur\Manhattan world through car chases, bar fights, and even a trip to King Koopa’s castle itself using all the neat “gadgets” that they find such as jumping boots and fireball gloves. But don’t expect this to be any more than a pointless, cute, wacky movie. Don’t look for a complex plot, complex acting, or anything of that sort… just get ready for one scene after another of wacky, childish, comedy! Woo-hah!