Super Mario Bros: The Movie remains a remarkable (and bizarre) video game movie.
Adapting any art form into a movie presents a tricky proposition.
The blue skies, cartoon landscape, and bouncy effervescence of the game are nowhere to be seen.
Instead, there are animatronic dinosaurs, long shadows, and strange hints of sexual menace.
As in the game, Mario and Luigi are a pair ofItalian-American plumbersbased in Brooklyn.
Theyre played, respectively, by Hoskins and Leguizamo.
Needless to say, its up to Mario and Luigi to head into the lizard dimension to stop him.
It looks less Mushroom Kingdom and moreBlade Runnernoir.
In the nightmare of sets being built and torn down, accidents happened.
It was Leguizamo who reportedly broke Hoskins finger when a van driving sequence went wrong.
Leguizamo and Hoskins apparently found the production so depressing, theyd frequently drink between takes to relieve the tension.
Willis had a lucky escape.
It has to be said, though, that nobody involved seems particularly interested in the propertys origins.
InSuper Mario Bros. 3, Big Berthas are giant red fish.
In the movie, Berthas a large-framed woman who possesses uncanny physical strength.
The Mad Hatter probably would have been a crack dealer played by Harvey Keitel or something.
Its likely that Samantha Mathis didnt have to pretend to be frightened in this scene.
Its a bit like seeing Jon Pertwee setting fire to Bagpuss or Sean Bean throttling E.T.
The Nintendo Super Scope was the companys next-gen replacement for its NES Zapper lightgun.
Fittingly, the movie ends in an equally bizarre manner.
I love those plumbers.
With the movies producers clearly expecting lots of money to be made,Super Mario Bros.ends on a cliffhanger.
Princess Daisy comes bursting into Mario and Luigis apartment dressed like Ripley, triggering the start of another adventure.
Needless to say, that next adventure was never filmed which is probably just as well.
Its perhaps fair, then, to give him the last word about the whole ordeal.
The worst thing I ever did?Super Mario Brothers, Hoskins said in a 2007Guardianinterview.
It was a fuckin nightmare.
