I Am a Sick Freak Who Thoroughly Enjoys Both Super Mario Bros. Movies

It is possible to hold room for both of these movies in your heart.

The new Super Mario Bros. movie is incredibly fun. A lot of people seem to feel the same way, given its robust $377 million worldwide opening weekend.

Perhaps most importantly, it breezes by at a brisk 90 or so minutes, much to the chagrin of adult weirdos decrying the lack of “story” in a movie about a New York plumber who gets sucked into a pipe to a magical kingdom of mushroom people fighting against the tyranny of a giant turtle monster.

It’s also about as faithful an adaptation as you can imagine, chock-full of Easter eggs and fun nods to the illustrious history of the game series. But it’s also not bogged down by those elements, either. It’s the perfect balance of accessible fun.

And I do hate to break it to some of you, but this was a movie made with kids in mind. Could I have done without some of the licensed music shoehorned into certain scenes? Of course, but the movie does always make a concerted effort to stay true to these characters, playing it safe for the most part, but having plenty of fun in the process. And the action, in all of its bright animated glory, is fantastic.

Now, you won’t have to look far to find people singing the praises of this film, which could very well make a billion dollars.

But I might be that rare breed who somehow has the capacity to enjoy both this movie and the much-maligned 1993 Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper.

That film, which famously soured Nintendo on making feature films for decades, is pretty wild in every possible way. It takes every risk imaginable, starting with being a live-action adaptation. Hardly anything is recognizable from the beloved games, aside from the outfits Mario and Luigi wear. Bowser is just Hopper with a ridiculous headpiece, and Yoshi is a straight-up real dinosaur. We do get Bob-ombs, though, and there’s a ton of grotesque fungal imagery throughout the Koopa kingdom, which is a really fun nod to the mushrooms of the game.

All in all, it’s a jarring departure from the game, but the DNA is still there. And for all the wild swings this movie takes, a lot of them land, if you can manage to avoid not seeing the forest for the trees. It’s not the Super Mario Bros. movie anyone expects, and it’s been stuck with the “worst movie ever” label for 30 years. But if you take a step back, you’ll find a rich, imaginative environment full of great set design and fun set pieces that make for an enjoyable family-friendly action film.

Plus, we got a Bob Hoskins action figure! What’s not to like?

And now, 30 years later, we get the most literal Mario Bros. adaptation anyone could ever ask for. Both are fun. Both are good. That’s all.