You know, The Super Mario Brothers Movie is a catastrophic bomb. At my age when it came out, I barely understood what made it so bad.. though not knowing beforehand that it was actually about mario, the parts I saw between chores did not seem too bad.
With this thinking, I have recently started to wonder if this movie would be any good if we completely forgot about it being about Mario in any form and assumed it just had all the names from the show for no apparent reason. So, lets take a look.
For the sake of this review lets keep Mario Bros out of our heads. I won’t go so far as to rename the whole movie, but I can sure as hell rename everything IN it! The movie begins with ma–um… Marth talking about how dinosaurs used to rule the earth until an asteroid wiped them out, then gave his completely insane theory on what if they were just sucked randomly into a parallel dimensions and yadayada.
I’m going to pretend he was trying to entertain some kids or something as that sounds so ridiculous i can’t help but pray it is sarcasm. Unfortunately, that is actually the plot, but hell its better to find out about a crazy reality than to randomly theorize a crazy reality without provocation, being dead on the money is completely irrelevant.
The movie begins with a strange lady who’s identity I cannot fathom dropping off what appears to be the most scientifically advanced baby pods Brooklyn has ever seen at the doorstep of what I hope is an orphanage. Apparently it was a church, and once they had taken the basket inside, they open it to find an egg, and react extraordinarily calmly, acting as though it was the most adorable egg in the world. I can only assume this sort of thing happens on a weekly basis for them.
While the mysterious lady flees, running into Koo-.. um let me see.. what name should I give someone as ridiculous looking as him.. I’ll call him Dennis Hopper. So, the lady accidentally buries Dennis Hopper under a pile of rubble, then flees as in the church the Egg hatches into a baby, who the nuns immediately say a prayer for. Seriously these are the calmest nicest nuns I’ve seen in my LIFE.
The story then cuts to show Marth and lu-um.. Lucas in their role of plumbers. We get a short glimpse at parallel dimensions on the news and strange disappearances in the paper. Lucas believes in this stuff, but Marth doesn’t, and since Marth is in charge here apparently, he gets the final say on it, and they head off to do some work.
As it turns out, the Marth brothers have been having some difficulty making ends meet because of Capelli construction beating them to the punch on a regular basis. Not only that, but the Capelli have also been harassing the nearby university to stop their excavation of fossiles so they can build over top of the site. He vaguely threatens the dig leader, implying that she might be next to be kidnapped if she doesn’t cooperate, but she refuses.
She is then stalked by a couple of Dennis Hopper’s goons in a completely unrelated incident, but they are utterly incompetent in doing so. she is finally given a name.. Dai-..wait.. well she’s named after a flower so I’ll go the easy route and name her after a different flower. Rose. So, Rose tries to get some backup over a payphone, and fails completely, while Lucas tries to awkwardly to ask her out by stumbling around the question and trying to be helpful.
Clearly Lucas isn’t nearly as confidant as Ness.. thankfully Marth is there to smooth things back out and get the plot moving again with a ride back to the university. Lucas fails a few more times at asking her out, which Marth again smooths over. Clearly Marth is the competent of the duo.
We have some more backstory given by Rose during a short dinner scene, then she talks with Lucas a bit before running off to show him a secret. Marth drops off Rose’s friend at her place and she is kidnapped within 15 seconds of him leaving.
At the dig site, Rose starts to talk with Lucas, when a few more minions of Capelli show up, breaking the pipes down there and trying to flood the area. Lucas quickly gets Marth and they work to shut down the valves, but Dennis Hopper’s thugs show up and Kidnap rose. This leads Marth and Lucas down into the deep caves, and to the entrance to the… um.. lets see.. its a monarchy, and filled with mushrooms.. so I’m going to call it the kingdom of High Rule.
We’re given a little look at the kingdom of High Rule, a serious dump of a place where Dennis Hopper rules and is trying to execute his plans to merge his world with the normal world in order to get at our resources. Seems like a reasonably solid plan other than the fact that with transportation between the two worlds is possible already and he could just march an army into the real world and take it now.
After his minions report in and say the plumbers took the rock needed for his plans, Dennis Hopper puts out a 2000 coin bounty on plumbers. Apparently while a substantial bounty, nobody seems to really care as the pair still walk around on the streets without notice. That is, until a sweet old lady mugs them, then gets thrown off a bridge by a bigger lady, and then that lady jumps away on steampunk jump boots.
This is definitely a strange world they live in. Course, the plot isn’t going to move it’s self, so the Marth brothers get arrested for being plumbers and a guy on the streets gets arrested for singing and they all get hauled off to the prison. I’d hate to see what they do to jaywalkers.
In the jail; Dennis Hopper threatens the Marth Bros with devolution if they don’t hand over the meteor piece he needs, and demonstrates by turning the singer into.. hm.. barely intelligent minions who are used as bouncers to keep the place clean of unwanted elements.. I’m going to call them Rumbas. He turns the singer into a rumba. Unfortunately for him, Marth and Lucas had no intention of being devolved themselves and fight the guards, then put him into the devolution chamber, and set him back a few thousand centuries for his trouble.
Once they escaped, they run into some more fungus that tries to give them.. er.. lets see, their kingdom’s powerful unique mobile bomb.. a bombchu. but Mario pulls him away and they flee without getting it. They proceed to steal a cop car, and flee the scene as a few cop cars join into the chase and a wanted notice goes out for them. The chase eventually ends with them heading into a tunnel and narrowly avoiding death when the fungus saves them. Marth continues to refuse to believe the fungus is useful and they head off.
Meanwhile, Dennis Hopper upgrades his minions who are apparently his relatives, then talks about his new weapon; the handheld devolution beam. Despite having a major brain boost, the minions continue to be completely retarded. After being ambushed by Marth and Lucas, they spill Hopper’s plans, which is like the third time the audience has heard it. Then, they set up a plan to get the rock back in exchange for Rose and head back to the city.
Marth attempts to seduce the lady who stole the rock in the first place; which has odd results. While she violently rejects him, his new tactic was to pretend to like it, and that works. Seems like a fairly abusive relationship; but to get the McGuffin, Marth will do anything.
After a dance scene, Hopper’s apparent girlfriend arrives with some rumbas to chase Marth and Lucas down. The lady holds the door closed and lets Marth and Lucas escape with the jump boots. Lucas has a feeling Daisy is in the tower and I thought I should mention while I did pick the name Lucas randomly, he certainly has an exceptional psychic ability.
The Marth brothers enter the tower and have a brief scene where they dodge being seen by the rumbas in the elevator while Hopper’s plans are struggling to advance. Unfortunately; Hopper’s girlfriend is getting extraordinarily jealous that the plan revolves around another girl, and he sends his two goons to be executed for failing to get the meteor piece back. Turns out the girlfriend had the piece on her the whole time.
The Marth brothers end up tricking the rumbas into dancing to get out of the elevator, while the girlfriend, who’s name happens to be mentioned Lina apparently, meets with Rose. She tries to kill her I’m guessing but Yoshi gets in the way, and Rose makes an escape, running into the Hopper cousins and joining up with them and is lead to her father, the fungus.
While Rose stays in the throne room, Yoshi comes in to hint at how to use the com center. The Marths meanwhile continue to struggle through the tower, and we get more of Marth’s refusal to believe while Lucas insists the Fungus is helping them.
Marth heads off to rescue the hostages, which allows him to avoid being captured like Rose and Lucas. Dennis Hopper finally get the stone back after Lina accidentally reveals she had it by trying to jumpstart the invasion, and he then begins the invasion for real by arming the rumbas and heading towards the meteor.
After Marth frees the girls and escapes, he ends up meeting up with Lucas and Rose, and Dennis Hopper tries to stop them, but is given the literal boot when Marth launches a jump boot at him and then at his rumbas. Marth continues his attack on Dennis Hopper to get the rock back, and it falls from the bucket they are fighting on. Lina catches it, gets shocked, then runs off to use it. Marth pretends to have taken the rock to distract Hopper, then uses the Bombchu to attack him once they are on level grounds.
The bombchu fails however as Lucas and Rose try to evacuate the girls while Lina tries to start the world merging to prove her worth. Lina managed to get the stone in, but gets horribly incinerated and fossilized in the process. While Lucas and Rose try to get the stone out, Marth and Dennis Hopper’s fight enters the real world. Dennis Hopper accidentally turns Cappeli into a monkey, with the devo gun, which gets a few laughs out of the people around, then tries again to hit Marth with it.
Marth blocks it with a mushroom, then tosses it to disarm Hopper. Lucas and Rose manage to get the stone out, and begin the demerging as the bombchu causes untold wreckage as it calmly walks along without any care where it ends up.
Hopper attempts to get the rumbas to attack, but they are distracted when the good rumba begins playing music for them and they all dance. Marth and Lucas start hitting Hopper with the devo beams while the bombchu detonates, tossing Hopper into the barrel, and the Marth brothers continue their assault until he’s completely devolved into slime.
The day is saved, there’s some cheering from all; the king is restored to normal, and Lucas has to say goodbye to Rose until she can decide if she wants to return to the real world or not. The movie ends with a cliffhanger though when Rose returns to tell them High Rule is in trouble once again and Mario doesn’t hesitate to believe this time.
So, when you think of it as Marth and Lucas’ adventure to save High Rule from Dennis Hopper and his army of rumbas, the movie might not be so bad.