Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, while the animated The Super Mario Galaxy Movie dominates the box office, let’s revisit 1993’s Super Mario Bros., the blockbuster flop that might just be a camp classic.
Last weekend, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opened in theaters worldwide, earning a staggering $130 million n the US, and $370 million globally. So far, it’s the most successful Hollywood movie released this year (much like the first installment was back in ’23), even if the critical response has been substantially less enthusiastic.
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However, these animated films are not the first time that the beloved plumber has made a jump (pun intended) from video game consoles to the big screen. Back in the early ’90s, Hollywood tried to adapt the story of Mario, Luigi, and their eclectic collection of dinosaur and princess companions into a live action film.
The result was one of the most infamous disasters in Hollywood history, which scared Nintendo off from making any other attempts at film adaptations for three decades.
However, the film has maintained a cult status for its bold and incredibly misguided take on the characters, and for a sense of elevated camp that has perhaps made it as charming as it was misunderstood. This week, we’ll look back at the original Super Mario Bros., and question if its bold choices could maybe give it an unexpected place in the queer film canon.
The Set-Up
Mario first made his video game debut in 1981 as a character inside Donkey Kong. It didn’t take long for him to get his own series, starting with Super Mario Bros. in 1985 with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Soon, a whole lore and ensemble of characters were created around him, including the main narrative of the dinosaur-like villain Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach, compelling Mario to embark on various journeys to save her (a plot that his modern games are still mostly structured around).
Forty years later, Mario is perhaps one of the most recognizable characters and pieces of IP that exists worldwide, which is why the two recent animated movies have become such big phenomenons. There are probably very few people around the world that are not at least a little familiar with his iconography, characters, and even music cues. But that wasn’t the case in the early 1990s. Back then, Super Mario was still a relatively new and isolated phenomenon without the enormous brand recognition and nostalgia factor that it has today.
Which could be an explanation for why the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie feels so experimental, and in many ways, so separate from the brand that Nintendo has built over the years. The film elaborate premise poses that, when the meteorite hit Earth and caused massive extinction 65 million years ago, it actually created a parallel dimension in which humans evolved from dinosaurs, as opposed to mammals.
Now, King Koopa (Dennis Hopper, playing an off-brand version of Bowser), a powe-rhungry descendant of the T-Rex, wants to merge the two dimensions and take over Earth. But for that, he needs the power of the lost princess that escaped from his realm, Daisy (Samantha Mathis). When plumber brothers Mario and Luigi (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) witness the princess’s kidnapping, it’s their duty to follow her to the other realm to save her and the rest of humanity.
Down The Wrong Warp Pipe
The film was directed by husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, and went through an extensive (often grueling) development and filming process. It was inspired by then-recent big action adventure films, like Ghostbusters, Blade Runner & the Back To The Future franchise.
However, the plot is practically unintelligible, and has only tangential similarities with the Super Mario games, borrowing characters often in name only and re-contextualizing them inside a world that is confusing, convoluted, and often grotesque. It became both a critical and box office bomb.
But that is not to say that it is not wildly entertaining at times. Even if it completely misunderstands the appeal of the games, it constructs a fully developed world that feels tangible—you can see the effort behind all the practical effects, costumes, and set design. At times, Dinohattan (yes, that’s the real name) feels like a sister city to the Gotham City of Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies, with its elevated sense of style and populated with larger-than-life inhabitants.
Choose Your Player
The performances reflect the disjointed and tonally dubious tone of the film. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo do their best with making Mario and Luigi endearing characters, but there is little depth in the story and they are asked to act out incredibly silly scenarios that render their efforts as entirely too broad.
The same thing happens with Dennis Hopper and Samantha Mathis in the supporting cast. But hey, at least former twink Leguizamo has a couple of shirtless scenes to fall back on!
And then there’s Fiona Shaw. The out queer actress plays Lena, King Koopa’s second-in-command, and might be the only person who understands the kind of movie she is in. As opposed to the rest of the cast, who seem to be fighting against the ridiculousness of this world, Shaw’s Lena blends seamlessly into it, giving a delightfully bonkers performance that is part Bond villain, part wicked Disney stepmother.
Game Over?
But how spiritually queer exactly is this film? The queerness comes mostly from the heightened camp in the production design and the performances. For our community, there’s an inherent appeal in something that tries so hard to be earnest yet instead gives out broad comedy and melodrama. In that sense, there’s something quite endearing about the underdog aspect of the movie.
The new animated Super Mario movies will probably satisfy viewers that are looking for family-friendly entertainment that hits all the expected notes of nostalgia for a generation raised on these characters.
But while the 1993 film may not succeed at all, it was made with the intention to expand and experiment with its IP, rather than being constrained by its lore and mythology, and it attempted to do something actually daring and different.
And, let’s be honest, there’s something very queer about shooting for the stars, and making do with what you’ve been given—even if the result feels like the aftermath of getting bonked in the head with a Koopa shell.
Super Mario Bros. (1993) is currently only available for physical purchase via Amazon Prime.
You can keep track of all LGBTQ+ films covered in our A Gay Old Time column via writer Jorge Molina’s handy Letterboxd List.
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