Super Mario Bros.

In my defense, Alex and I were exhausted, his Internet was on the fritz, and everything else he had on DVD I either watched recently, or had no interest in watching (I do not share his love of musicals.) Plus, even if I haven't watched this since seeing it in the theaters, I was pretty sure it was bad enough I wouldn't feel bad falling asleep during it.

I didn't fall asleep, but it would have been better if I did.

I really wonder at the thinking that went into the approach they took with this movie. The whole thing about the meteor that killed the dinosaurs creating another dimension where dinosaurs didn't go extinct and instead continued to evolve, and now they look basically human, minus Dennis Hopper's goofy hair?

(Alex observed that Hopper looked like he didn't give a fuck, and I'd say that tracks. I don't know how much of what he earned for this he spent on coke, but it probably wasn't enough.)

Koopa (Hopper) as this sort of delusional, harried wannabe dictator, with some sort of cleanliness issue, with a wife he doesn't respect, definitely an odd choice. For that matter, Mario (Bob Hoskins) as some self-styled great romantic was unexpected. Or Luigi (John Leguizamo) as a much younger brother, highly interested in bizarre phenomena, always looking before he leaps and trusting to "feelings." I guess the characters were vague enough at that time, they could rivet on whatever characteristics they wanted. Still, Super Mario Bros is not the movie where you expect to find a scene in a dance club where the protagonist is trying to steal the MacGuffin from between a lady's breasts. 

The way they sort half-assedly try to incorporate parts of the games. The flamethrowers in place of fire flowers, the weird jump boots, Goombas being de-evolved locals. It seems, if they were going with this idea that Mario needed to embrace Luigi's way of thinking, of being open to believing in the improbable, that it would make more sense to make things really weird. Have actual flowers that spit fire, and talking turtles. The latter wouldn't even be that weird, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had been a big deal for a few years by this point, with cartoons, games, at least one live-action movie.

It feels a little like the someone wanted to do a dystopian sci-fi, with a bit of horror. The idea of your punishment for disobedience being that you're regressed to a state where you're too dumb to disobey, or even reduced to being a giant fungus, that's potentially frightening. The idea Koopa and all his people inhabit a dying world, piled high with garbage, and so they're desperate to get somewhere better. It isn't just imperialism, it's pure survival instinct on some level. 

Even the sets feel like they were left over from some Blade Runner or Total Recall knockoff. The cars that run on a trolley system, a jail set up like a dog kennel, the big imposing towers with lots of pointy walls, all the catwalks and grated walkways.