Super Mario Bros.

Mario (Bob Hopkins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) are the Mario Brothers and they run a very unsuccessful plumbing company.  It's unsuccessful because of Scapelli (Gianni Russo). He is the main plumber in town, which obviously means he's corrupt. We see him putting pressure on grad students that are digging up dinosaurs bones, because it's blocking his business or whatever.  One of the grad students is Daisy (Samantha Mathis). Luigi sees her and falls instantly in love with her. They are on a date in the dinosaur caves when Scapelli's goons flood the caves. Fortunately Luigi gets Mario and they stop it, right before Daisy gets kidnapped and dragged into another dimension. 

You see, millions of years ago, when the asteroid hit, it didn't actually destroy the dinosaurs. In reality in shunted them into another dimension where they have continued to evolve to look like us. Twenty years ago Daisy was brought to the human world to keep her safe from the evil Koopa (Dennis Hopper) who has taken over the dino world. Daisy is the daughter of the rightful King (Lance Henriksen) and holds the last piece of the meteor that crashed on Earth. Once the shard is put in place the two dimensions will once again become one. So Koopa has sent some goons into our world to find Princess Daisy and the rock.

Unable to let his true love get away, Luigi drags Mario through the gateway and into a world full of dinos, corruption and fungus.  Once there they lose both Daisy and the rock. Things go from bad to worse as they end up in jail and on the most wanted list, then escape only to get lost in the dessert.  They eventually make their way back, fail to get the rock and just skip it and go for Daisy in Koopa's towers. There they finally change into their costumes from the video game and have to fight off a bunch of giant goombas that are de-evolved dinosaurs (not mushrooms). Well, not so much fight as teach them to dance...don't ask, really don't want to get into it.  Skipping to the end: they win, Koopa dies and Daisy becomes Queen and has to stay in her world, while Luigi has to go back to his world....for some reason.

Anyway this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the game. The only thing in common between the two was that they were brothers and they were plumbers. That's it. 

Ignoring that, the plot was interesting. Not done very well, but interesting. The main problem I had with this movie was that the world was so over the top and fake that it was completely unbelievable. I cannot believe that they survived with limited resources for 65 million years, nor do I believe that Koopa could control an entire city with a bunch of stupid goombas.

Nothing in this movie actually makes any sense. Why was the original king not meshing the two worlds together? Why was he condemning his people to the  pathetic world? How is it only the royal family were the only ones with the power to combine the two worlds? Why was there some people less evolved than others? How is it the world hadn't imploded in on itself yet? Why did Scapelli get de-evolved to a chimp? Why did Koopas two cousins suddenly turn against him for no reason what so ever? How did the King suddenly re-evolve  from fungus to his former self as soon as Koopa died? Was it on a timer or something? Why were Scapelli's goons so stupid that they wore their work jumpers with 'Scapelli' across the back when they were doing illegal things?

The sad thing is that the acting was actually pretty good.  And the special effects were pretty cool considering that it was made in the early 90's. Too bad the plot and the script were stupid. Oh God the script! It makes me angry thinking how cheesy the dialogue was. Best just to ignore it, maybe it'll go away.

Grade:  4/10