I would love to see a director's cut of that film because it was a victim of massive executive meddling after the fact.
It was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who created and directed both the British and U.S. versions of Max Headroom, which is why it has a cyberpunk look. It was co-written by Ed Solomon, who wrote Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Men in Black.
And then executives shat all over it.
You also have to remember that in 1993, there was almost no Mario lore. Mario was a guy who jumped on mushrooms and turtles to rescue the princess and sometimes got extra powers to help him. Luigi was his brother who could basically do the same thing. There was really no characterization and plot to speak of. They had a ton of freedom to do whatever they wanted and that freedom was taken away from them.
There is a cut out there done by my friend Garrett Gilchrist, who also restored The Thief and the Cobbler, where he tried to get it as close to Jankel and Morton's original cut as he could, using things like workprints. But we'll never know exactly how good it could have been.
Tank Girl was a very similar situation, but still ended up an okay film.
From the stories I've heard, the husband and wife directors ran a terrible production with daily rewrites and an extremely unhappy cast and production team. I don't think studio meddling was the major factor there.
I've always enjoyed it for what it was; A campy, goofy movie based on a video game. It never took itself too seriously, and it just kind of accepted itself. Just watched Borderlands, for example, and it was horrible and flat. The characters were there, but they weren't the characters, just 2D imaginings of them. Anyway, looking up reviews, I found a great one that compared it to the '93 SMB. They said that we needed another SMB, and we didn't get it, Borderlands wasn't "interestingly stupid". That's a great term. Interestingly Stupid is definitely what SMB was, simultaneously a blast, while also being the dumbest thing you ever saw, and you can never quite put your finger on the reason it(kinda) worked.
Hook my beloved. I understand objectively why it is not a good movie, but having watched it 852 times throughout my childhood, I could not find fault with it on a recent rewatch.
edit: I watched that movie so early and so often, that I can recite whole scenes not by word, but by phonemes and cadence, because my language skills weren't fully developed at the time.
It's a terrible story that makes littke sense. I was in high school when it came out and people my agewere surprised it became a classic as it was received poorly.
I watched the Mario Bros movie as an adult a few years back and really enjoyed it. It was a fun take on the lore!
The only thing I felt was weak was Dennis Hopper. His performance had strong "I'm too good for this" vibes. Based on the other things I know him from, that's wildly untrue - it should have been a great fit for him. Chew the scenery and be an arsehole - basically be the Deacon from Waterworld, or the villain from Speed!
Krull the conqueror which not only is a terrible movie but also a terrible game and I love both. Then again Im 50 and I love many bad videoganes from the Atari era such as ET or Delta Force (also bad game and movie also produced by Cannon films)
I was five or six and gaming was new. It never occurred to me that having to reset the game because I fell down a hole was a bad thing. To me it was just like dying in any game but you only had the one life. I loved ET and beat the game often.
That being said Yar's Revenge and RealSports Tennis are the best Atari 2600 games IMO
Oh, I forgot to mention the not good movies that I watched over and over again on VHS in my childhood.
Number one would be the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth where James Mason plays a Scotsman and doesn't even bother with an accent and Pat Boone also plays a Scotsman but gives up on the accent after about 10 minutes. The whole plot is moronic and the effects are terrible and I love every single minute of it. The only true compliment I can give it is that Bernard Herrmann's soundtrack is terrific.
Then there was the 1980 attempt that Disney made to appeal to college kids, Midnight Madness. It was a total flop and I love every single minute of it. FAGABEEFE!
Third would be an animated movie that was made in France and dubbed into English called The Secret of the Selenites. It was a Baron Munchausen film, but I'm guessing they thought Americans wouldn't know who that was, so they left his name out of the title. It has a terrible pop song in the beginning that is in the "so bad it's good" territory.
For me its Fatty Finn. A 1980 movie adaptation of an Australian cartoon strip character from the 1930s. Why it was translated and published in Norway and what made my mother buy it I don't know. But I have seen it enough times that now over 30 years after I last saw it I can probably quote parts if it Verbatim.
M. Bison's famous "It was Tuesday" line in Street Fighter (1994) is frequently misread by viewers as a statement of apathy. Instead, he is telling Chun Li that the day her father died was so important to him that he can instantly recall what day of the week it happened on.
Traci Lords remix if the movie theme is great if you never heard it and like EDM.
Note if you do not know who Traci Lords is please make sure you include “Mortal Kombat soundtrack” in any search for it as she famously did porn before turning 18
Everything about it is terrible, but it's saved by Raul Julia in the same way that Tim Curry saves the Three Musketeers and Alan Rickman saves Robin Hood.
A classically trained actor treating the whole thing like a pantomime. It's glorious.
The first MK movie was the archetypal "It's good... for a video game adaptation" movie for a long time. Luckily now we have great adaptations (not necessarily movies though) to point to that stand on their own merits.
But yeah, there's always a part of me that will have fond memories of MK and the JCVD Street Fighter movie. Hell, add Double Dragon to that list.
The Breen is something you need the moral support of others to watch. I traumatised a colleague by making him and another friend watch Twisted Pair with me. I watched two Breens alone after that, since the other two refused to watch any more with me, and it was painful.
"I'm not seeing another psychiatrist. I'm not. I'm not seeing another psychiatrist. I'm not seeing another psychiatrist. I'm not."
(Is that lines from a Breen film, or my reaction after watching a Breen film?)
They maintain the Breen is a troll, but I think he's got delusions of grandeur and really thinks he's making these deep masterpieces.
Disney's The Black Cauldron. Apparently it was so bad it like...almost killed off Disney animation for good? But I loved that shit as a kid. No idea why we had it, either. I was born almost a decade after it came out. Eilonwy deserves her place with the Disney Princesses, damn it!
I saw that in I think Carnegie Hall with an orchestra doing the music when it got released. The kids such as myself liked it but the parents were silent.
idk if it was terrible because I haven't watched it in over 20 years.. but that'd be Space Jam for me. Watched it so often, the VHS gave out and we had to buy it a second time.
Oh there are so, so many awful movies that I loved as a kid that I have a positive memory of but would be better off not watching again to ruin that memory.
Legend would have to be one of them. It’s still a spectacle to watch, and Tim Curry is incredible as Darkness, Robert Picardo is Meg Mucklebones, but it’s so far over the top it’s a fever dream.
Cave Man with Ringo Star, Shelly Long, and Dennis Quaid. Laughed so hard I cried when I was a kid. Watched it again not too long ago and it’s pretty bad.
Whoopee Boys, same as Cave Man. Cannot rewatch.
Buckaroo Banzai, Revenge of the Nerds, so many other bad movies I loved as a kid. Most of the cheap action films too. Schwarzenegger’s, Stallone’s, Van Damme’s…so bad, lol. There were some absolutely great ones, though…the original Predator (‘87) comes to mind.
I can count on one hand how many people I've met that have seen Maximum Overdrive. That was one of my favorite movies growing up, and now I'm a huge fan of Stephen King.
1999's The Night of the Headless Horseman. Very '90s CG but if you're able to get past that it's amazing, one of my top two favorite tellings of the tale, with voice actors including Mark Hamill, Clancy Brown, Tia Carrere, Bill Fagerbakke, and William H Macy.
Thomas and the Magic Railroad. (2000) So bad it led to the franchise getting bought by SHiT HiT Entertainment. Less said about the show after that the better. Still, the OST is a bop, and Neil Crone was entertaining as hell to watch as Diesel 10.