BEST Video Game movie?

[turf]

Another one that's awful, but I love is Double Dragon. Abobo in that is so stupid looking, it's awesome.

[zenimus]

I don't care what anyone says, Super Mario Bros was an awesome movie.

You can bag on it all you want about it "not being faithful" or something, but in 1993? We didn't have a very established "persona" for Mario yet. The only time I ever heard him speak was in the Super Mario Bros Super Show with Captain Lou Albano's voice. Personally I think Lou Albano was a *fantastic* voice for Mario. Mario's not supposed to be this Italian Mickey Mouse they've turned him into once the Nintendo 64 came out. He's supposed to be a plumber (or carpenter if you wanna get picky, so let's just say handyman) from Brooklyn, New York. I don't know how many New Yorkers you've ever heard, but they definitely don't sound like "It's-a me, Mario!" Bob Hoskins is a British actor, but he got the middle aged New York handyman persona down perfectly in this movie.

Now imagine if you were given the task of making a live action movie about two plumber brothers who get warped to an alternate dimension with a lizard-man overlord, mushrooms everywhere and a kidnapped princess. This concept sounds insane. There's basically no real plot to take from the games, only tons of bizarre imagery.

Given the task the film crew had with this project, it's no surprise it had such trouble with re-writes in production. But somehow... somehow... they came up with a wacky adventure that's a lot of fun to watch. Look at how many subtle references to the video games are jam packed into the background signs. Even the big lady wearing red was named Big Bertha (like the big red predatory fish in SMB3). If you have a mushroom kingdom, you need a king right? Well having the mushroom king be this creature who devolved into a sentient fungus was a perfect way to allow for "mushroom power ups" to happen. Even Mario's trademark high jumping was accounted for with the jump shoes.

I'm astonished how people could possibly think the movie wasn't true to its source material. The whole thing is loaded with clever ways to bring the insanity of the Mario franchise into a "real life" movie. When I saw it in theaters as a 9-year-old, I thought it was great. And to this day I still do. 

[burningdoom]

By 1993 we didn't have a very established image of Mario yet? Huh? Mario mania was in full swing. We had 5 games in the main series (Mario Bros, SMB, SMB 2, SMB 3, SM World), we had spin-off games (Mario is Missing, Mario's Time Machine, Dr. Mario), we had the cartoon series, we had the comics, we even had a kids novel series. Mario was very well established.

The movie BARELY resembled Mario at all, besides the main character's costumes (none of the other characters had the costumes right, though).

I'm not gonna say it's a bad movie on it's own merit, because frankly I can't see it as anything other than a bad Mario rip-off. But it's terrible at being a Mario movie.

[zenimus]

Of course Mario mania was in full swing by 1993, that's the whole reason the movie even exists. Mario's "image" as a character was very well established, but he didn't have any kind of set personality yet. In each depiction of him, be it comics, cartoons or games, his personality tended to vary quite a bit. However, look at Mario after 1996 when he got the Mickey voice. Since then every depiction of him has always been the same, with no variation at all.

In the end, you've just gotta take it as a fun romp through an alternate version of the Mario world. If you're into comic books, they do that stuff all the time.

[badATchaos]

Wreck it Ralph?

[stealthrush]

As for best live-action video game movie, the first Silent Hill was not all that bad. That and Street Fighter for nostalgia-sake.

[madmax]

It's obviously this:

[atarileaf]

Wreck it Ralph?

Yep. I guess Pixels will be a potential contender but I doubt it'll beat Wreck it Ralph but the latest trailer does make it look a little better.