a review of 超级马里奥兄弟

What is this?

Of all the popular video games that were ripe for a film adaptation back in the '90s, turning Super Mario Bros. into a movie was always going to prove particularly challenging. On one hand it seems like a no-brainer to try and cash in on such a well-loved series like this, but at the same time you have to consider how little the Nintendo platformers actually give Hollywood to work with. They rely almost entirely on the gameplay and level design to keep players engaged as the simple premise of a plumber jumping his way through imaginative worlds to rescue a princess from a monster is about all of the story they have. With no cutscenes or dialog to pull from and no controllers available to let the theatergoers control the action, it's up to the filmmakers to craft a series of events to make up for those narrative deficiencies largely from scratch. The first attempt at doing so here (apparently there's a second on the way) is certainly memorable. I don't know how someone was able to look at the NES classic and come up with this, but I imagine loads of mind-altering drugs were involved. Watching this makes YOU feel like YOU'RE the one that's high on shrooms. This gonzo tale covers everything from dinosaur people to parallel dimensions and sentient fungi. It regularly references the source material, but only in the strangest of ways to the point where it never actually resembles the games at all. This inadvertently leads to the experience having that trash cinema appeal due to how outlandish and just plain bizarre it all is. Plus, the fact that the directors were able to take these crazy ideas and tell a cohesive story with them while also bringing them to life with effects that are quite good for the time is nothing short of impressive. So if you've ever wanted to know what it's like to go on a wild, hallucinogenic trip, but aren't interested in actually taking drugs I recommend checking this mess out. Could you imagine if Mario was actually like this?