literaturenerd

Greetings MAL readers! Since today is 4/20, I might as well review something that you would have to be high out of your mind to enjoy or even sit through. This is the Mario movie that Nintendo quickly shat into theaters in 1986 to immediately capitalize on the overnight success of 1985's Super Mario Bros for the Famicom/NES. The live action American film would remain in production Hell until 1993, when it was finally released to less than glowing reviews. Unfortunately, this film makes the live action Mario look like a masterpiece! Don't get me wrong. The American live action Mario is bad. However, it'sat least charming in how cheesy and misguided it is. It also has a hilarious performance by Dennis Hopper and is quite quotable. The Mario anime from 1986 is just a cheap, soulless cash grab. People worry that's what the upcoming Mario with Chris Pratt will be, but this film did it first! This film was written by Hideo Takayashiki, who is best known for writing the series composition for Ashita no Joe Part 2, Kaiji, and One Outs. He's one of the best script writers to have ever worked in anime, and yet this movie still sucks because he didn't care. It really seems like nobody who worked on this shit cared. Luigi wears blue in this movie because they couldn't be bothered to research that he's supposed to wear green! This isn't an instance where he was blue in the Famicom version and green in the NES version. He was always green! I've looked at the footage of the Famicom Mario from 85. This movie just cared THAT little! Did I mention the Mario Brothers are Japanese and run a small grocery store? They're supposed to be Italian plumbers. It says so in the first fucking sentence of the game manual! I know the first Mario game didn't exactly have as much story depth as The Witcher 3, but they didn't open the God Damned game manual! The movie opens with Mario up at 3 AM in the morning playing Paper Boy for the Famicom. I find this hilarious because Nintendo's official mascot is a traitor. Paper Boy is an American made game by Atari that was ported to the Famicom in 1985. This film was made in late 1986, so Mario could have been playing Legend of Zelda, Ghosts and Goblins, Duck Hunt, or Gradius. Instead, he's playing a shitty port of an American Atari game. Luigi comes down wearing a sleeping cap and holding a candle because he thinks he's in a 1930s cartoon, but Mario yells at him and tells him to fuck off. Then Princess Peach comes out of the TV like Sadako and tells Mario to help her before being dragged back into the TV world by Bowser. Luigi tells Mario it was all a dream, but Mario is convinced it happened. Then an obnoxious blue dog that's not in any of the games shows up and the Mario brothers try catch it, which leads to a GOD-AWFUL musical number. The brothers then climb through a construction pipe at the garbage dump, and this sends them to the Mushroom Kingdom somehow. The God of the video game world, who just looks like the stereotypical Western portrayal of God, tells Mario and Luigi that they must rescue Peach, but Luigi is only interested in money because he's a greedy bastard in this film. This was before the Mario Brothers really had distinct personalities in the games, because the only games out at this time were the arcade game and Mario Bros 85. So, Luigi's personality in this film is that he loves gold coins and he's an asshole. Ironically, this may have inspired the creation of Wario, who didn't show up until 1992. What we get next is an extremely aimless adventure to try fit in cameo appearances of the basic enemies from the 1985 video game. We also get another awful original song that will make your ears bleed. Thankfully, they only had the budget for 2 original songs, so the rest of the OST and all the sound effects are just ripped directly from the 1985 game. They didn't get an orchestra to play the Mario theme or anything that makes it feel like a film adaptation. It's literally just the NES audio files because this anime is cheap as hell. Did I mention it looks like absolute garbage? Anime movies are supposed to look better than TV series where Toei has to rush out 1 episode a week. Nintendo was swimming in money back in 1986. Yet, this movie looks like a C-tier television anime from the 1970s. This was made by a brand-new studio named Grouper who had never made an anime before. After this movie they went radio silence for 5 years until finally reemerging and redeeming themselves in 1991 with their 2nd anime called "The Sensualist". That film is an arthouse hentai BTW. Then they made a couple shitty children's anime and seemingly liquidated in 1995. The upcoming Mario film has gotten a lot of flak over its odd casting. However, the original Mario movie from 1986 has it beat. They hired a female K-pop singer to play Bowser and told her to voice him with the most nasally, high pitched, ear grating voice possible. Bowser's voice in this movie is cancer in audio form. Quite possibly the worst casting/ voice direction combo I've ever heard in anime. I will never understand why they thought Bowser should sound like that. This is possibly why Nintendo didn't give Bowser a human voice actor during the N64 period when all the other characters got voices and held off on giving him actual lines until the Game Cube era. Bowser is still mostly a silent character who just roars and growls, quite possibly as the legacy of this bad casting! In summary, this anime is extremely boring, looks like shit, has terrible audio, and is a complete waste of time. It was made on dirt cheap to make a quick buck and that's about it. Is anything good about this anime? Actually...yes. They decided it was too mean to have Mario cast Bowser down into fiery lava like the games, so they had Mario defeat Bowser by grabbing him by the tail and doing a spinning toss to send him into the sky. Mario 64 then decided to use this as the way to defeat Bowser 10 years later! This movie gave us the gift of "So long, gay Bowser!" At least it finally did something right!

Shalameen

In all honesty this anime is by no means TERRIBLE. The story was awful and the music was 80's awful. But it's Mario, so it gains a few points in key departments! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Story: While the story was terrible, it remained true to the Mario standards of "save Princess Peach, then we're done!" It also managed to include the power-ups we all remember, such as the Red Mushroom, Fire Flower, and the Star! So it definitely tries hard to please we who played the games. It's very comedic as well, and I actually managed to chuckle a few times. A few scenes were extremely boring, having onlythe two Mario Bros. walking through different back droppings. Big minus! Art: The art isn't half bad! All of the Mario baddies we all know and love were involved, and they looked very good! Hammer Bro ftw! :D It does indeed shine in a few areas. The only drawback is that it's only (to the best of my knowledge) available in VHS form. So it's not exactly perfect viewing. Of course this isn't the fault of the artists! Sound: The SFX were awesome, the only reason sound scored an 8 in my review, as the music was awful. The random "Denim, denim, denim" or the warp tube sounds were extremely nostalgic, and they honestly kept me watching it. You could also hear other familiar sounds that come from the Mario NES series of games! The music was terrible though, so there's your fair warning. Character: It's Mario, so naturally it's good. But the lack of originality stopped me from giving it a higher rating. Enjoyment: Besides the random fun SFX and the nostalgic sight of Koopas, Hammer Bro, and Bowser this really isn't too exciting to watch. Without the nostalgia I really doubt this would have gotten any bit of enjoyment out of me. IF you enjoy Mario you'll definitely find some satisfaction SOMEWHERE. To sum it up, you may as well watch it! If you're a Mario fan you'll definitely have a laugh or two or maybe a "W00T!" during the final battle. From someone who doesn't look back to the NES Mario days as the best of their lives, however... You should probably pass this one up. :D