Soho's art corner

In terms of establishing the fundamental aesthetic of the 1990s strand of cinematic cyberpunk, the 1993 Super Mario Bros. adaptation is probably up there with Johnny Mnemonic and Lawnmower Man influence-wise, as much as we all hate to admit it.

Welcome to the "learned from this post that the first major live-action feature film adaptation of a pre-existing video game franchise was a dystopian cyberpunk AU of Super Mario Bros. for some inexplicable reason" club.

I do believe the stink of this movie saved us from some far worse projects. I have no idea what those would have been, but I believe.

Are you kidding? This film was the vanguard; it may have tanked in theatres, but the novelty of it led to a number of bandwagon-jumping projects in following years. After Super Mario Bros. dropped in 1993, we had Double Dragon and the Jean-Claude Van Damme Street Fighter in 1994, then Paul W S Anderson's Mortal Kombat in 1995; the unexpected commercial success of the latter film was reportedly the deciding factor when Angelina Jolie accepted the lead role in Tomb Raider a few years later, which in turn kicked off the second wave of major live-action video game adaptations in the early 2000s that gave us the Resident Evil films

Don't forget the 𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘮 Movies

I prefer to focus on positive outcomes.

Its one of the greatest movies ever made and I am NOT kidding