Super Mario Bros.

To listen/download, click here!

Imagine having the opportunity to make a movie out of the most popular video game franchise ever created. Now imagine taking almost every single thing that actually resembles the game itself and removing it. Throw in a British guy and a Colombian-American guy to play the very Italian lead characters, and throw in Frank from Blue Velvet, Harry Potter's Aunt Petunia, and the parking valet who took Cameron's dad's Porsche for a joyride in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Oh, and also Mojo Nixon.

No, really. Someone thought this was a good idea!

Finally, add in a bunch of nonsense about rival plumbing companies and mafia-run construction companies (because New York, we guess), and you almost have whatever the hell Super Mario Bros. was supposed to be. And that's what Derek and Larry sat down to watch this week!

65 million years ago, a meteorite crashed into the Earth, apparently killing off the dinosaurs...

...or did it?

No, it totally did. But Super Mario Bros. suggests that, instead, the dinosaurs were blown into an alternate dimension, where they continued to thrive and evolve into some sort of dino-human hybrids.

Millions of years later, a mysterious woman leaves a mysterious package containing a mysterious egg with a mysterious baby in it at a not-especially-mysterious convent. When the egg hatches, the nuns discover a small rock that had been embedded in the egg's shell...

Jumping ahead a few more years (probably around twenty-ish), we meet Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo), a pair of plumbers who work in the cutthroat sewer repair industry that apparently exists in Brooklyn, New York.

Mario is all business--a guy who knows how to fix the heck out of a leaky pipe. He has no time for the silly tabloids and garbage television shows with which his apprentice brother Luigi is infatuated. When the brothers get a call for a repair job, they pile into their truck and take off, only to be beaten to the customer by the Scapelli Construction Company.

Across town, Anthony Scapelli (Gianni Russo) himself is causing problems for someone else: Daisy (Samantha Mathis)--an archeologist who is trying to have a poke around a piece of land where Scapelli wants to put a building. Scapelli, unimpressed by Daisy, threatens to make things incredibly unpleasant for her and her crew, so she goes looking for a payphone (remember those?) so she can call the museum and get them to hire more security for the site.

By a strange coincidence, she finds the exact payphone that Luigi happens to be using to call an answering service while Mario goes into a nearby store to get some water for the truck's radiator. Luigi offers Daisy the phone, and Mario comes out, only to discover that his little brother is smitten with this average-looking young lady. Mario immediately starts laying the groundwork for Luigi to get some action, offering Daisy a ride back to the site so Luigi can stammer at her for a bit.

And show off their incredible fashion sense!

Despite the fact that Daisy only walked a few blocks to the phone, the ride takes long enough for the site to clear out almost entirely, aside from a couple of creepy guys (Fisher Stevens as Iggy and Richard Edson as Spike) who are following Daisy.

Daisy offers to show Mario and Luigi what it is that she is digging for: the skeleton of a dinosaur that appears to have opposable thumbs, which means that they continued to evolve after the meteorite supposedly killed all of them.

While this is going on, Iggy and Spike open up a water valve, hoping to flood the site and force them out. Fortunately, Mario has his tool belt, so he and Luigi set about shutting off the water, only to be knocked unconscious by Iggy and Spike, who then grab Daisy and make a run for it down the tunnel.

Mario and Luigi give chase, only to find some kind of portal. Daisy manages to get halfway out, long enough for Luigi to make a grab for her, but only managing to get her necklace, before she is pulled back in. Luigi convinces Mario that they need to go through that portal to rescue Daisy, so they jump in, only to find themselves in a dark, crowded underground city.

They are immediately mugged by an elderly woman, who steals the necklace. That woman is then mugged by Big Bertha (Francesca Roberts), who takes the necklace and throws the old lady over a railing.

She may be vicious, but she's still all woman.

As Mario and Luigi try to get the necklace back, they stop to listen to a protest singer named Toad (Mojo Nixon), who is singing a song about the evil King Koopa. He is almost immediately arrested, and then so are Mario and Luigi when they try to defend him.

Sent to jail and caged, the brothers receive a visitor (Dennis Hopper, for some reason). When they go to meet him, he says that he is the lawyer assigned to them, but after they start talking trash about this King Koopa guy, the lawyer reveals himself to be Koopa and sends them to the Devolution Chamber, where they will be devolved back to dinosaurs, or goombas, as Koopa calls them.

Before they can have their bodies enlarged and their heads shrunk, they turn the tables on Koopa, stuffing him into the machine, which gives Koopa lizard eyes and that's about it. The brothers make their escape, steal a police car, and a chase ensues. Just like in the game.

Getting stuck on top of another car, and then making a wrong turn or two, Mario drives them over a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style, only to be saved by the mucus that seems to be all over the place. Luigi thinks it intentionally saved them. Mario is dubious.

Daisy, who has now been stuffed into a room with a bunch of other women who had been kidnapped, is taken to speak to Koopa, who wants her to give up the necklace because it turns out the rock in it is part of the original meteorite that hit the Earth millions of years ago, and reattaching it to the meteorite will reconnect this dimension with ours, allowing him to take his goombas and rule that world, too.

And really get his Kiss tribute band out there, ya know?

She's not down with that idea, even though he also promises to let her father (Lance Henriksen), who is a drippy wad of goo currently, live.

Mario and Luigi find themselves in a desert, with Iggy and Spike coming after them. The brothers ambush the two nimrods and tie them up, demanding to know what it is they want. When Iggy explains that they just need the necklace and why, Mario offers to get it back from Bertha if they will help him and Luigi get Daisy back. An agreement is made, and they all head back to the city to find Bertha and dance the necklace away from her. (This makes sense. Trust us on that.)

Now that they have the rock, Iggy and Spike take it to Koopa, only to have it snagged by Koopa's assistant, Lena (Fiona Shaw), who wants to put the pieces together and rule bother worlds herself.

Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi are trying to find Daisy, and they run across the other women, one of whom is Mario's girlfriend, Daniella (Dana Kaminsky). But Daisy is nowhere to be found, because she is being taken to see Lena.

With her chaperones in tow. Just in case.

Lena chains Daisy up with Yoshi, a small dinosaur that looks nothing like the one in the game, and then takes the necklace to the room where the meteorite is stored. Mario breaks the girls out of the room they are stuck in, and leads a bunch of goombas on a chase that involves sliding down an ice tunnel on a mattress. Luigi finds Daisy somehow, and they go looking for Lena, getting there just in time to see her get blasted into the wall because only the princess--Daisy--can put the pieces back together.

Lena did manage to open the portal briefly, transporting Koopa and Mario to the "real" world long enough for Koopa to turn Scapelli into a chimpanzee with a portable Devolution gun, and then sending them back, where Koopa and Mario square off. Will Mario defeat Koopa? Will the brothers ever get back to Brooklyn? Will this movie never end?

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek picked this movie because he thought it would be funny to watch Larry's reaction. Unfortunately, the film was so terrible that he forgot to look at Larry, so the whole point was lost. He is, however, upset that such a great cast would read the script for this film and still agree to be in it.

Larry actually enjoyed the movie, for some reason, causing Derek to question just what sort of horrible things Larry has experienced that would make him enjoy this film. He does, however, agrees with Derek about the casting.

So get your toolbelt, grab your plunger, and listen to this week's episode!