Super Mario Bros. 2
Directed By: Harold Ramis
Produced By: Jake Eberts/Roland Joffé
Written By: Tom S. Parker/Jim Jennewein
Based On: Super Mario Bros. by Nintendo
Cast
Bob Hoskins as Mario
Danny DeVito as Wario
John Leguizamo as Luigi
Kenny Baker as Toad
Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy
Fiona Shaw as Pauline
Keith David as the voice of Tatanga
Frank Welker as the voice of Junior
Release Date: July 15, 1994
Budget: $100 million
Box Office: $500 million
And another knockout success for Mario. The plot begins with Mario and Pauline living together, Mario still working as a plumber with Toad acting as his assistant as Luigi moved out after the events of the first movie to live with Princess Daisy. We get some mild sitcom antics with Mario, Pauline, and Toad before a portal opens up, through which Luigi and Junior come spilling out. Luigi has come to get Mario's help as Sarasaland is under attack from aliens. Despite Luigi's fears of Mario's skepticism, Mario believes him and asks when they can leave. And so, they head through the portal and a fun adventure ensues. For the most part, the plot is seen as a weak rehash of the first film, Daisy being kidnapped by a villain and the Mario Brothers have to save her. However, Parker and Jennewein are able to make the story work thanks to drawing from the Star Wars in terms of keeping the audience thrilled and supplying solid comedy.
The four major players praised were Hoskins' Mario, Leguizamo's Luigi, DeVito's Wario and Tatanga. Hoskins, while seemingly not having a lot to work with since Mario's heart warmed up, is clearly having a blast and playing well off of Fiona Shaw and against Danny DeVito. In the film, Wario is a clone of Mario created by Tatanga but given a twisted, cruel personality, a dark mirror of Mario. DeVito plays him mostly for the comedy but can occasionally interject menace into the role, though he and Hoskins mainly just tried to one-up each other overall.
Leguizamo, meanwhile, had to carry the dramatic weight of the story, building his friendship with Toad and wondering if he can prove himself as good as his brother (playing a bit off Leguizamo's own doubts on being second to Hoskins) but he does the job well. Finally, there's Tatanga, who gained a good chunk of budget to make sure the animatronics were there to give the costume the right articulation for his mouth. Keith David's voice provides Tatanga a great presence as an interstellar warlord and allows some levity during Wario's hijinks throughout. The movie ends with Luigi rescuing Daisy, Mario besting Wario (who bails when he realizes that Tatanga's gonna stiff him on his pay) and Luigi topples the tyrant of the stars, living happily ever after.
The film came in with double the original's budget and walked out with five times that in the box office, putting it at #3 on the worldwide box office, below
Forrest Gump at #2 and
The Lion King at #1. The movie did put a small dent in
The Mask, costing it $50 million of its take, but since that means it only made $300 million, I doubt think Jim Carrey or Cameron Diaz are gonna be crying into their pillows about how the movie did. The movies that suffered were
The Next Karate Kid and
Milk Money, neither of which could handle the onslaught of Lion King and SMB 2, both raking four million each and bombing hard. The movie was also the third success in movies for Nintendo, but maybe some other video game companies will be able to rake in that coin soon. We'll see in November.
