In Defense of Super Mario Bros (1993)

Well, it's time. I've been pushing this off too long. It is time to defend the 1993 film Super Mario Bros., directed by married team Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Buckle up because this is going to be a ride.

Bob Hoskins as Mario looking kind of incredulous.

In order for this defense to work we have to come to one agreement: if you have any baggage of this film not being like the video game, you must release that. It is the first step to allowing yourself to enjoy this film. If you cannot get over that, I will bear you no grudge. I cannot get over how historically inaccurate the 1998 film, Ever After, is. I just can't. I've tried it and it's something outside of my power. So if you just can't get over that this movie is nothing like the video game franchise then I wish you well and hope the upcoming Illumination Mario flick with Chris Pratt is for you.

However, if you're willing to at least consider that agreement, you might enjoy it. It's like the 2005 flick, Constantine, with Keanu Reeves. The first few times I watched it I just couldn't get over how much Reeves' character wasn't the John Constantine of the Hellblazer comics. It's not even that Reeves didn't act like the character the character wasn't written like that John Constantine either. But the moment I released that this was something else and allowed myself to enjoy it, I had a neat supernatural noir to watch and enjoy.

Alright, have you let go of the fact that the 1993 film is not going to be the video game? Cool. Great.

I've now been able to see the theatrical release as well as the recent "Morton Jankel cut" where fans were able to find some previously thought to be lost footage and splice together the closest thing we'll ever get to a director's cut. This is pretty important to this film because when the directors joined the team they wanted to have a "darker" approach, something akin to Blade Runner or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's not that shocking they wanted to go in that direction in the first-place as Jankel and Morton were among the chief co-creators of the Max Headroom television show. Unfortunately, Disney bought the distribution rights right before production started so when the crew showed up for initial filming they discovered a new script that had been punched up for family-friendliness. And the fighting was only uphill for the creative team from there.

I don't tell you all this to excuse the film. I want to put into context the clashing tonal elements. The folks with the money wanted a fun kids film that will do well enough in the box office to be a return on investment. The creatives wanted to say something. The result is kind of a mess. My argument today isn't that this is cinematic greatness, only that there's something to enjoy... specifically with what the movie is trying to say.

So what exactly were Morton and Jankel trying to say with the Super Mario Bros. movie? If you look past the goofy plot and examine what the movie is actually saying and the themes presented then we can find something worthwhile.

In the film, we are presented with two worlds: ours and theirs. Ours is represented by good ole' Brooklyn. Theirs is represented primarily with this over developed metropolitan nightmare engulfed constantly in dark. Surrounding the city is a planet-wide desert because all of the resources have been consumed.

It's not too big a stretch to say that this is an Alice in Wonderland level through the looking glass story. Their world is a reflection of what late stage capitalism would do to our world.

The Dinosaur Dimension of Super Mario Bros. is meant to be a trajectory of a post-Reagan America, consuming all the resources where everyone is just casually cruel to one another. Everyone is just a plain jerk to one another. This is further encouraged by their "democratically elected monarch," a bleach blonde sociopath in a suit that is somehow in the seat of power despite not being too bright. Now I'm not going so far as to say that Super Mario Bros. predicted President Trump twenty years early... just that the design of Dennis Hopper's King Koopa does seem to pull closely from him.

From the moment the Mario Brothers are on the police radar in this world they are met with excessive cruelty and violence, all because the singular leader has called out plumbers as enemy number one. In 1993, this is a film that is positing that in this dark reflection of our beloved America that police are just a tool of enforcing violence - a blunt tool used by those on power upon those without power. There's also a bit of satire thrown in on America's gun obsession that I didn't catch until a recent rewatch. Aside from the police having flame throwers and evolution guns, the cameras used to get the mugshots of the plumbers are also stylized as guns as a gag to make the brothers (plausibly) think they're about to be summarily executed. Even the styluses used to interface with the computers are incomprehensibly designed to be guns.

This presence of the commentary on gun obsession and the role of police not as protection but hierarchical enforcement is shocking once I finally caught on to it. So, to put into perspective, this is a dark reflection of our own world. It doesn't reveal anything that isn't happening already, just trying to exaggerate it to bring it to light those that haven't noticed. Slipping this into a video game movie targeting kids is like slipping medicine in the wet food for the pets. It's sneaky but it gets the job done.

And then there's the obvious commentary that I even caught as a dumb kid - the environmental commentary. The Dinosaur Dimension had consumed all the resources of their world until all that was remaining was a planet wide desert. I hadn't put the two and two together to realize that capitalism was the culprit, but the idea of unfettered consumption was something teenage me could pick up.

These are the messages that are lurking in this weird video game movie: it's anti-cop and anti-capitalist, it's pro-environment and even pro-kindness. All this on a set that could have been part of Blade Runner with half-dinosaur weird people running around trying to steal each others' eggs. If you just don't care that this Super Mario Bros. movie isn't really about the Super Mario Bros. but about two blue collar brothers looking into a twisted fun house mirror of where capitalism is taking their world it becomes a fun ride to let yourself enjoy.

Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo on the set of Super Mario Bros. (1993) playing Game Boys together, connected by a game link. They just look so happy hanging out. I love this photo so much.

Other fun points I didn't have time to sneak in anywhere else:

• I love that when Spike and Iggy "evolve" to advanced they basically become Marxists
• The practical effects of the Yoshi puppet are mind blowing when you realize it predates Jurassic Park by two years
• As a large kid, seeing the body positivity of Mario romance Big Bertha, even if I know it's social engineering, kind of changed me
• The theme of "letting go and just believing" dialectic between Mario and Luigi is an interesting one to have amongst the rest of the film
• I still can't believe they got Alan Silvestri to do the score but it still stands out as a fun one