Review: Super Mario Bros. (Blu-ray)

Starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper

Second Sight, out now

Meet Mario and Luigi. They’re plumbers. And they’ve got a damsel in distress to rescue…

It’s received opinion that this movie isn’t very good. Actually, that’s an understatement. It’s received opinion that this movie singlehandedly accounts for the worst films in the careers of the majority of its leads. Sometimes received opinion is, of course, wrong. Not this time.

However, even from the dross of a movie that can’t work out if it’s trying to appeal to fans of the Nintendo video game that spawned it, to the kids attracted by the bright colours, or to the adults dragged along to the cinema to watch it with them – the tonal shifts in this put the changes in the current season of Doctor Who in the shade – there are some positives. Or at least there are in the extras that Second Sight have put together to accompany the release.

The sixty-minute new documentary explains some of what went wrong and it’s possible to see how it could have all come together if certain decisions had been made differently. Co-directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel were trying to create an epic fantasy, but there were many other forces at play, and no matter how much fun some of the actors had on set, it was never going to be epic in any sense. It’s accompanied by the original Electronic Press Kit feature which makes for some very interesting contrasts.

Verdict: Credit to Second Sight for producing a fascinating documentary but even with that, Super Mario Bros. remains eminently missable. 5/10

Paul Simpson