Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Super Mario Bros. 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

"This ain't no GAME!" *Grins* The '90s were adorable...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown March 10, 2024

Poor Super Mario Bros. Trashed viciously from the get-go, the infamous 1993 crowd-pleaser freezer turned box office bomb, Buena Vista mishap and Nintendo embarrassment is... actually not as bad as you remember? More than thirty-years past its not-so-prime, I was expecting the god-awful misfire my memory insisted I had watched at fourteen when my friends and I rented a VHS copy specifically for a watch-party built around mocking the film we had only heard about in hyperbolic rants from others. But now, all these years later... I mean, let's not go crazy. It's not a great flick. I'd even be lying if I used the word "good". But Super Mario has its vintage charms and tasty '90s cheese. Whether they loved the experience or hated it, the cast -- at least as they far as what they deliver on screen -- fully sell the best and worst of the sometimes gummy dialogue, the FX and practical creature designs are delightfully retro, the dark dystopian spin on the Mario mythos half-works, the action feels less like a videogame commercial today than when it was nearer to marketing then-new peripherals (three cheers for the SNES Super Scope) and, well, I might wanna stop there before this starts to read like an apologist's love letter rather than a revisionist's shoulder shrug.

Next stop... Dinohattan, a parallel dimension that exists beneath our own; where dinosaurs migrated to escape extinction 65 million years ago, evolving into a humanoid race with reptilian powers. When an interdimensional portal opens between the two worlds in Brooklyn, henchman of the evil President Koopa (Dennis Hopper) kidnap several women in an attempt to find an orphan princess Koopa can use to re-merge the two realms. Enter Mario and Luigi (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo), two plunger-slinging brothers who take an impromptu break from the plumbing business to save Mario's girlfriend, Daniella (Dana Kaminski), and an archeology student named Daisy (Samantha Mathis) who recently caught Luigi's eye. What follows is a mish-mash of Mario characters and iconic bits from the games, stretched and warped to almost unrecognizable shapes and sizes for... reasons only the early 1990s can explain, all to constantly apologize for any kiddy-ness or cartoonish flights of fancy a proper Mario film might entail, favoring darker, more twisted, grittier versions of everyone from King Koopa to Princess Daisy, Toad, Yoshi, the Bob-ombs and the Goombas. Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel and written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon, Super Mario Bros. also stars Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, Fiona Shaw, Lance Henriksen, Gianni Russo, Mojo Nixon, Don Lake, John Fifer, Francesca P. Roberts, and the voice talents of Frank Welker and Dan Castellaneta.

Super Mario Bros. arrived just four years after The Wizard, a little-known '80s road movie that offered frothing fans a look at the soon-to-be-released third game in the venerable NES videogame series. (Keep in mind children in 1989 didn't have things like "the internet" or "YouTube". We were an archaic people.) Fred Savage's cross-country trek to a videogame tournament didn't set the cinematic world on fire, but it represented Nintendo's first real move towards feature films. It was only licensing, but it was lucrative. "Imagine the possibilities..." You can almost hear a man at the head of a Nintendo boardroom whispering it while signing a very precarious dotted line on a contract bound for Hollywood, USA. Unfortunately, whatever door The Wizard cracked open, Super Mario Bros. slammed shut, convincing the notoriously cautious Japanese videogame company to stay far, far away from the big screen for the next three decades. (2019's Detective Pikachu and 2023's animated adaptation of Mario, Luigi, Peach, Koopa and the Mushroom Kingdom have been the only notable US feature film releases since.)

In a 2007 Guardian interview, the late Bob Hoskins didn't hold back when asked about which film he regretted the most, answering bluntly, "Super Mario Bros. It was a f---in' nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! F---in' nightmare. F---in' idiots." The stories of production troubles are as long as they are varied. Late-night rewrites. Fights and arguments. Baffled actors. Drinking before takes. Crew members storming off-set in frustration. Props and sets falling apart. Hoskins' nightmare, it seems, wasn't his alone. Watching Super Mario Bros. today you can see the seams, the hesitant budgeting, the occasional confusion in the eyes of background actors, even the haphazard improv-esque feeling that comes with a movie pieced together as it goes. It leads to plenty of tonal inconsistencies, hit or miss gags, tangents that run too long, characters that need more screentime (Mario's girlfriend being just one) and others who have plenty and then some (Hopper's Koopa), and a sense that a tug-of-war match is playing out just off screen, presumably for the what, exactly, the movie is supposed to be. A comedy? An action caper? A live-action cartoon? An adventure film? A dark sci-fi romp? No one seems to know at any given moment.

But therein lies some of the magic. Thirty years removed from the crushing disappointment of a once-in-a-lifetime videogame film falling flat -- at the time we didn't dare dream of an era when comicbook and videogame movies would be *gasp* so common people would begin to grow tired of them -- Super Mario Bros. isn't the worst movie of all time, or 1993 mind you. (To declare it the worst of '93, you'd have to first defend Jason Goes to Hell, Look Who's Talking Now, Deadfall and RoboCop 3. Good luck.) Nah. It's merely a misguided, unwieldy bit of development-hell fun that never quite comes together. Never quite gels. It isn't offensively bad, nor is it unwatchable by any measure. It ebbs and flows, surges and recedes, aggresses and relents. It works and suddenly doesn't, again and again until one final lame attempt to carve a path for a sequel signals the imminent roll of the credits. It's a movie made under tremendous strain that, somehow, seems to arrive at its destination without a care in the world... other than what the box office numbers will be. And it's earned enough unironic fans to bless it with cult status -- no easy feat -- not to mention this feature-rich, AV-remastered 4K Blu-ray release.

Super Mario Bros. 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Umbrella delivers a relatively terrific native 4K presentation of Super Mario Bros. sure to leave any fan satisfied with the results. First, though, a few nitty-gritty notes, the specifics of which have been helpfully outlined in the forum. On the 4K disc's lack of HDR: "The rights holder did not make an HDR version available to Umbrella. Umbrella wanted it and enquired on it. Attempts to do it in house were also not an option." On why the set's deleted scenes appear in HDR while the feature film does not: "The licensor was only able to provide a 4K SDR master for the main feature. Our restorationist, however, was able to author and grade all the restored workprint VHS footage for the deleted scenes in HDR. So we fought to have those included in HDR." Wait, what? On how such a thing works with VHS footage: "The [deleted scenes] restoration work was performed natively in 4K and in the HDR color space. When combining four different VHS tapes as sources, additional color and gamma information is able to be captured and balanced and when correcting brightness fluctuations HDR can be beneficial. Yes, there will be limited gains made, but they are still noticeable. The restoration work on the deleted scenes was completed in HDR prior to the confirmation that the main feature could only be sourced in SDR." Bottom line: no HDR, nor any reason to fault Umbrella for not including it.

On to business. How does it look? There are a few inconsistencies -- shifts in color-grading are a tad distracting when they (briefly) occur, soft shots aren't entirely uncommon, and some scenes have a slight blue tinting -- but it all strikes me as issues with the original elements rather than the remastering or subsequent transfer. Otherwise, Super Mario Bros. has never looked this good. Colors are often bright and punchy, with plenty of lifelike skintones, vibrant primaries, inky blacks, and wonderfully delineated shadows to behold. Contrast is dialed in nicely as well, as are the tweaks in color grading which make for a more pleasing appearance from scene to scene. FX sequences suffer the usual dip in contrast and clarity for a film of the era, nothing too surprising there, and a handful of scenes are too dark to get very far peering into the shadows. Overall detail, though, is excellent, with crisp, clean edges (no halos here!) and refined, revealing textures. A faint veneer of grain is present and unobtrusive, and I didn't detect any sign of banding, artifacting or other unsightly nastiness from the encode. Long story short, the restorationists at Umbrella have done a fine job with what they've been given and produced a strong presentation whose only problems are bound to the film's source elements.

Super Mario Bros. 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Super Mario's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track sounds great, with little in the way of sloppiness or underwhelming sonics. Dialogue is clear and intelligible throughout. Lines aren't lost in the Dinohattan chaos (even when a 'splosive third act rips open a box marked "action"), nor is fidelity sacrificed for volume. The rear speakers offer a welcome array of directionally precise effects, hurling across the soundfield from one channel to the next with the slick, smooth ease you've come to expect from proper 5.1 remasters of early '90s films. It would almost be easy to call it remarkably immersive, if it weren't for a bit of spatial separation that the sharpest audiophiles among will notice in conversation-laden, front-heavy sequences. (I suspect another product of the source rather than the mixing of the track on hand.) LFE output is all kinds of fun too, with Bob-omb booms, Super Scope thooms and Koopa-quake roars aplenty. Some flatness does creep into the soundscape, but every instance seemed to me to be a product of remaining true to the original sound design. Dynamics deliver and the mix is both playful and engaging.

Soapbox alert. While I'm sure there's more than a few people who wish every movie sounded as if its audio elements were captured in 2024, a film's era is crucial to how it should look and sound. We should all appreciate mixes in which '60s movies sound like '60s movies, '90s flicks sound appropriate to the decade, and modern films are allowed to have their own distinct tone and tenor. That doesn't mean one sounds objectively better than the next; it means each one sounds renewed -- perhaps even re-contextualized should the restoration fates allow -- yet still remains faithful to its creators' intentions and its place in film history. If you strip away Super Mario's 1993 trappings and decidedly '90s personality, you lose some of what makes it special to those who love it as the videogame-movie time capsule it is. Remastering and restoration are not arts that reinvent the wheel. They reveal the wheel for what it originally was or, at most (when directors or cinematographers are available), what it would have been had its filmmakers had access to the tools afforded us today.

Super Mario Bros. 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K edition of Super Mario Bros. is housed in a black Blu-ray case inside of a slipcase with front and rear art. It's nothing terribly exciting or eye-catching, but it does have the "feel" of a more expensive collector's release. That said, the second disc -- a standard BD-50 -- only includes special features and the rough workprint version of the film. The set doesn't offer a 1080p presentation of the theatrical cut (or a proper high definition transfer of any cut for that matter). Bonus content breaks down as follows:

• Audio Commentaries (Disc 1) - The theatrical version of Super Mario Bros. features a whopping four audio commentaries, quite the surprise considering how viciously the movie has been treated over the years. The tracks included screenwriter Parker Bennett; co-producer Fred Caruso and production designer David L. Snyder; makeup artist Jeff Goodwin, SFX crew Mark McCoy and production assistant Craig Edwards; and finally SMB archivists Steven Applebaum and Ryan Hoss. One small note: the commentaries are listed in the Setup menu rather than the Special Features menu.

• Deleted Scenes (Disc 1, HD, 20 minutes) - A lengthy collection of deleted, extended and alternate scenes, all presented in 1080p high definition, which proves to be a nice plus even if the scenes are more miss than hit.

• Ain't No Game Trailer (Disc 1, HD, 1 minute)

• I've Got the Power Trailer (Disc 1, HD, 2 minutes)

• Workprint Version of the Film (Disc 2, HD/SD, 111 minutes) - The second disc kicks off with a rough (very rough) workprint version of the film: an early pre-FX edit that boasts bits that were trimmed away and other goodies. You'd have to be a super fan to sit through the whole thing, though, as the upscaled 480p video doesn't look good at all.

• Featurettes (Disc 2, HD & SD, 227 minutes) - A host of behind-the-scenes featurettes and interviews, new and old, offer more than your heart could ever hope for. Among them "This Aint' No Video Game" (HD, 56 minutes), "The Making of Super Mario Bros" (SD, 18 minutes), "Katabasis of the Lost Girl" (HD, 23 minutes), "Anarcho-Dino-Sado Chic: The Fashion of Dinohattan" (HD, 20 minutes), "The Hero Moment: Super Mario, Superhero" (HD, 14 minutes), "[D]Evolution, Dystopia and Trusting the Fungus" (HD, 21 minutes), "Raleigh Reunion Panel" (HD, 39 minutes), "LPGE: Movie Props" (HD, 5 minutes) and "Behind the Scenes Interviews" (SD, 31 minutes).

• From Storyboard to Screen (Disc 2, HD, 7 minutes) - Five sequences are examined: "Ice Tunnel Chase," "Inter-Dimensional Merging," "Koopa's Demise," "Lena's Demise" and "Brooklyn Bridge Climax."

• Trailers & TV Commercials (Disc 2, HD/SD) - Three Japanese trailers and ten commercials.

• Spike & Iggy Revolutionary Rap Music Video (Disc 2, HD, 2 minutes)

• Anti-Koopa Protest Music Video (Disc 2, HD, 3 minutes)

• Photo Gallery (Disc 2, HD)

Super Mario Bros. 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Super Mario Bros. is absolutely, 100% a product of its era. It's also a product of a disastrous production that has been all but chronicled by all who survived its making. But for a film cursed with such burdens, there's a surprising amount of fun to be had; a cult-y so-bad-it's-good enjoyment on tap that allows it to rise far above the station it was assigned by audiences and critics in 1993. I wouldn't say it was ahead of its time by any means, but there's perhaps more here to love than some of us realized. Umbrella's 4K Blu-ray release is a terrific 2-disc set regardless of how much love or hate-love the film. With a solid restoration, a strong video presentation, a blast of a lossless track, and a massive collection of special features, this is an easy one to recommend.