Super Mario Brothers

One fine example of how Hollywood doesn't understand video games. Based off the popular video game franchise from Nintendo Entertainment, about two plumbers that fight against King Koopa to save the Mushroom Kingdom and rescue Princess Peach. However, in the film, it tells a story of two Italian brothers, Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) from Brooklyn, who follow a young girl, Daisy, with a mysterious past into Mushroom City. Along the way they bump into Mayor Koopa (Dennis Hopper), whom plans on capturing Daisy, so he can take over the Mushroom Kingdom and our world as well.

Unlike the game, Daisy, whom turns out to be a princess, falls in love with Luigi. And Yoshi turns out to be a baby Raptor while Toad turns out to be a mutated goon of Mayor Koopa. Oh yeah, and Bowser is rewritten to be a fat black woman whom Mario seduces into helping them take on Koopa's army.

I remember as a kid, I used to love watching this film. Almost as much as I used to love the "Carebears" films and "Masters of the Universe" but as I got older, I realized just how awful these titles were.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the Mario video games, but this film never should've been made. Maybe it would've been better if this film was animated. However, then again, this film just shows how little Hollywood knew about video games, and it continues to this day. I know that Hollywood made this film, at the time, because of the character's popularity.

However, if you honestly broke down what each Mario game was about (excluding spin-offs like Mario Kart, Mario Party and Mario Baseball to name a few), they were always about Princess Peach getting captured by King Koopa as he tries to take over the kingdom, and the Mario Brothers step in to save the day. Not too much story to base a film on. No, what makes Mario a popular game is its' gameplay value. Which is something you can't generate in a film. Maybe if it were an animated musical so they could've filled out the slow parts, it might've worked.

However, as it seems from watching this film and many other video game based films, many Hollywood companies view games as toys for children. I remember super hero films had the same problem with campy portrayals of Adam West as Batman, for example.

Thankfully, "Superman: The Movie" changed that perspective for the super hero genre. Maybe that's all the video game movie genre needs. Just one great film to make people take it seriously. However, with films like "Doom" and "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", it doesn't seem like it'll happen soon. For those looking for a faithful portrayal of the "Super Mario Bros." game, then don't bother because it becomes clear that the producers didn't know anything about the game.