Kickin it with Keith: a Gaming Column

Super Mario Bros. is a simple game to describe; two Italian plumbers fight an army of turtles and their monarch in oder to rescue a Princess. There has been multiple Marrio games over the years, and they pretty much follow this same formula. In 1993, the world was introduced to Super Mario Bros. the movie, which was a big deal at the time, seeing as it was the first movie to be modeled after a video game. From top to bottom, the film barely resembled the game. Starting with casting, they had Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi. Neither really fit the role, as Hoskin was not physically fit for the role, and Leguizamo in no way appeared to be Italian. Then we have the damsel in distress, played by Samantha Mathis. While there is no complaints I can find in the actress, the role itself did not fit. Instead of Princess Peach, the object of Mario's affection in 99% of the Mario games released, they used Daisy, the mostly forgotten damsel from the Mario's Gameboy Adventures.. And then we have the villian himself, King Kooper played by none other than Dennis Hopper. DENNIS HOPPER! And it wasn't an animated character, nor a man in a suit and make-up. It was Hopper himself with oddly gelled hair. The movie did eventually give a glimpse of Koopa in a reptilian form towards the end of the film, but it just came off as looking a bit silly. Then there's the other characters of the film. You have Toad, now a normal guy instead of a mushroom man, who gets transformed into a Goomba, now large hulking frames in trenchcoats with tiny lizard heads. Yoshi makes an appearance in the film, but does not appear to be much more than a pet who winds up playing Koopa's assistant. (Trivia: she was played by Harry Potter's aunt from the films) And then you have Koopa's two idiot nephews.

Moving on from the cast of the film, we have the setting of the film, the so-called "Mushroom Kingdom." Instead of a colorful landscape with floating brick platforms and massive green pipes, we have a dark and dirty industrialized city covered in fungus and surrounded by a desert. The world itself is explained as being an alternate earthe where dinosaurs continued to live and eventually evolved to the point of having human bodys. Finally, we arrive at the plot of the film. Daisy is left at an orphanage as a baby and given some chunck of rock to hold onto. Years later, she's a student at an archeological site and meets Mario and Luigi. She gets kidnapped and Mario and Luigi follow, crossing over into the alternate earth. They work to get the rock back, discover that the fungus is Daisy's dad, Mario dances with the Pinesol lady, they shoot Koopa with a couple of Super Scopes, save the kingdom and go home. Then, the movie ends in a cliff hanger, where Daisy arrives at Mario and Luigi's door requesting their help, for something bad is going on in her home world, leaving us to wonder what might have happened, and what they will do to stop it in the possible sequel. Even at the age of 12, this was a question I had no interest in wanting answered. All in all, the movie can be summed up in one word: