Super Mario Bros.

You know how you can see a trailer for a movie and there are a few funny things in it and you think it might be worth the price of admission? Then someone tells you that those few funny things are the only good parts of the movie so you end up saving your six bucks after all. Well, I thought the trailer for Super Mario Bros. looked pretty interesting (in a guiltily pleasurable way) but it was just the tip of the iceberg. Which, strangely enough, is the problem. The movie is the trailer, shown over and over and over again. And it starts getting boring on about the second “over.” It follows two well-meaning plumbers, Mario and Luigi Mario (Hoskins and Leguizamo), as they enter a parallel world and do battle with eight-foot-tall lizard pinhead Goombas, de-evolution chambers and leaky pipes in an effort to save a princess named Daisy (Mathis) from the tyrannical reptilian King Koopa (Hopper). With a good cast, great special effects and a Blade Runnerish set, the directors (Max Headroom's Morton and Jankel) apparently thought no one would notice the absence of a decent script. (And, unlike me, the 12-year-olds who packed the house didn't.) Morton and Jankel, who are also famous for their award-winning commercials for giant clients like Coca-Cola, IBM and GM have crafted a big, glossy, feature length advertisement. Loud, frenetic and facile, Super Mario Bros. is full of noisy sound and cartoon fury, signifying… a sequel.