Could’ve Been A Krull: Super Mario Brothers

Written by: Tony Lazlo, CC2K Staff Writer

Tone. Siskel and Ebert slammed the movie for its muddled tone, and they were right to do so. Directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton got caught between making a straight-up kids’ movie and a grimier, more self-aware action flick for young adults. This leads to a lot of embarrassing, kid-movie dialogue and flavorless, kid-movie jokes.

But at the same time, the movie hits us with more grown-up imagery like Mario’s curvy girlfriend (Dana Kaminski), the monsters and violence of the dinosaur world, and a night club filled with scantily clad women, not to mention a dishy (and slumming) Fiona Shaw in a skin-tight dress.

What could they have done differently? What tone would have been appropriate for this movie – straight-up kids’ fare or PG-13 edginess?

Neither, and I hope you didn’t fall for my false dilemma. There is a way to fill a movie with subversive, legitimately funny dialogue while still making it kid- and family-friendly: Make it like The Princess Bride.

A majority serious geeks hold Rob Reiner and William Goldman’s 80s classic in high regard, and with good reason. The Princess Bride works so well because everyone involved commits to every moment, whether serious or goofy, with absolute sincerity. For example, Chris Sarandon spends most of the movie in a standard satirical vein as the blustery, cowardly, villainous Prince Humperdinck, but when he decides to murder Westley (Cary Elwes), Sarandon digs deep to deliver this evil speech:

You truly love each other, and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the storybooks say. And so I think no man in a century will suffer as greatly as you are.

Watch Sarandon’s eyes during his close-up in this speech. They burn with heartbreak far more than they smolder with evil, and that’s what makes this scene so good.

SMB had the capacity to deliver a movie this good. The original writing team was Parker Bennett and Terry Runte, whom I’ve never heard of, but the production staff brought in Ed Solomon to do a rewrite – Solomon, who wrote Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Men in Black. I’m not a huge fan of Men in Black, but it delivers on a few different levels, and Bill and Ted is a good-hearted joy to watch – and that’s the thing: The idea behind Bill and Ted is no more stupid than the idea behind SMB (or Krull or any old fairy tale), and given the resources at their disposal and the talented cast, there’s no reason why SMB couldn’t have been as good as, say, one of its own scenes.

You’ll have to skip ahead to the -0:30 mark in the following clip from the movie for the scene I’m talking about:

The Mario brothers get arrested. Spiky-shouldered cops hustle them into the police station, where a Brion James lookalike waits at the front desk to book them. A sexy leg, wrapped in black tights and capped with a stiletto heel, rests on his shoulder, an unseen babe offscreen. As glass shatters and general mayhem churns in the background, the cop asks them their names:

Desk Sergeant: Name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Last name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: And you?
Luigi: Luigi.
Desk Sergeant: Luigi Luigi?
Luigi: No, Luigi Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Okay how many Marios are there between the two of you?
Luigi: Three: Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.
Desk Sergeant [calling to another cop]: Mike! Mike! Help these Marios around the side.

I realize this scene isn’t much to go on, but it shows that at some point along the line, someone involved with this shitpile actually found some humor in the source material. Of course Mario’s last name is also Mario if they’re the damn Mario brothers. That’s funny!

William Goldman also found humor in the primary sources for The Princess Bride – fantasy epics and fairy tales – and he poked fun at those sources while still taking his serious scenes seriously. To wit, when Westley and Buttercup and lost in the Fire Swamp, Buttercup asks him if he thinks the “ROUSes” are a threat.

“Rodents Of Unusual Size?” Westley responds, explaining the curious acronym. “I don’t think they exist.”

Naturally, a giant rat flies into frame and knocks Westley to the ground at that moment. It’s a funny bit, but then the scene turns instantly grim as Westley fights for his life.

SMB never settles on one tone. The Princess Bride chooses several tones and commits to each of them equally, demonstrating that even the goofiest of source material can deliver great entertainment as long as you believe in what you’re doing. Krull did it. There’s no reason why the Mario brothers couldn’t have, too.