Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton’s family adventure has inventive sets and a dispiriting shortage of good jokes. David L. Snyder’s production design rewards a look, but the muddled storytelling makes sustained attention hard work.
Super Mario Bros. is a poor family adventure with inventive sets and too few good jokes. Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton aim for a strange, busy fantasy, and their willingness to make something peculiar deserves some credit. But the characters are thin, the story is difficult to follow and the comedy repeatedly falls flat. At 105 minutes, it is a long time to spend waiting for the people to become as interesting as their surroundings.
David L. Snyder’s production design provides the strongest reason to persist. The sets have a pleasing solidity, and their elaborate construction gives us something to examine when the comedy has stalled. Dean Semler’s cinematography makes good use of that physical detail; the scenery remains interesting through some otherwise tedious stretches. There is considerable care here, and the photography allows us to appreciate the work that has gone into the surroundings.
The screenplay, credited to Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon, does much less for its human inhabitants. Mario Mario and Luigi Mario have personalities in outline and a supply of comic business, but too little that makes their company appealing. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo work hard at material that keeps asking effort to do the job of wit. We were bored by their exchanges because the wisecracks arrive without the character detail that might make them funny.
Dennis Hopper’s King Koopa is more diverting. The performance is excessive enough to put some life into the thin writing, and for a while we can enjoy the sheer insistence of it. That does not make the villain much of a character, but it does give the comedy something to work with. Fiona Shaw also finds some pleasure in Lena, though neither performance can compensate for how little interest the film generates in its leads.
Mark Goldblatt’s editing leaves too much of the story’s muddle intact, so following the adventure becomes a chore. Individual visual effects make an impression, though they never add up to a sustained sequence of excitement. Alan Silvestri’s score has the same problem: it cannot supply an emotional interest that the script has neglected to establish. There is only so much the music can do for people we have scarcely been encouraged to like.
A family fantasy can be peculiar, frightening or even confusing for a while, provided there is somebody worth following through it. Here the mixture of child-friendly comedy and less welcoming imagery never settles into a convincing tone. The strange visual ideas deserve better jokes, and more warmth from the leading characters. The effects offer intermittent pleasures, but they cannot make an adventure exciting when its characters remain this unengaging.
The appeal is narrow, and it lies chiefly in the work of David L. Snyder and Dean Semler. Anyone curious about elaborate fantasy production design will find things worth studying, though there is no need to pretend the story improves while doing so. For an evening’s family entertainment, we would choose something else.
