I was so disappointed. I think it made me realize that movies, like, could be bad. That never occurred to me until that moment
Seth Rogen, on the topic of the 1993 film Super Mario Bros.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie coming out this past April- as well as the fact this year is it’s 30th anniversary- has brought 1993’s Super Mario Bros.: The Movie back into public consciousness, and even with renewed interest and appreciation it is still considered one of the worst films to many- including Seth Rogen, who voiced Donkey Kong in the new Mario film- and is rated at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.1/10 on IMDb.
It’s Not Just the Reviews
The film itself was filled with production problems, the root of many of them being the fact that the script was filtered through a total of 9 writers and 2 script doctors, whose attempts at editing the film to be more lighthearted caused the final writer choices to quit and be replaced with the rehired 4th and 5th writers.
- Because of all the changes, actors didn’t bother memorizing lines
- Bob Hoskins (Mario) and John Leguizamo (Luigi) spent the majority of production drunk, which led to Hoskins breaking a finger
- Dennis Hopper (President Koopa) once spent 3 hours yelling at the producers and directors for being unprofessional
- Richard Edson (Spike) and Fisher Stevens (Iggy) fully improvised their lines, ignoring the script completely
- The shooting schedule ended up several weeks longer than expected and over budget
- The directors were eventually not allowed to help with re-shooting or editing
So, How Is It Good?
In order to appreciate this movie, you need to forget what it’s supposed to be, it’s downfall is actually the fact it’s a video game movie, the first video game movie. At the time of this film’s creation Nintendo really didn’t put a lot of time into building the world of the Mario games and there was no previous attempts at creating a film from a game, in the end the only real connections between this film and the Mario series are character names and the concept of fungus. The directors worked with what they knew- cyberpunk style dystopian sci-fi. The plot is understandably goofy after all the script changes, but the gritty yet futuristic visuals is where this film shines.
I feel like in order to enjoy this movie you need to turn your brain off and take the plot for what it is while taking in the visuals, especially the CGI- which is now only slightly dated and was groundbreaking at the time.
And really, in what other movie can you see a man devolved into a suit-wearing monkey via sci-fi evolution gun?
See It For Yourself!
In 2019 the SMBArchive found a VHS previously owned by a producer with never before seen footage and extended versions of scenes. After restoration by Garrett Gilchrist, The Morton-Jenkel Cut was made available online for free on the Internet Archive. You can view it embedded below or at the Internet Archive.