SUPER MARIO BROS.: GREAT MISSION TO RESCUE PRINCESS PEACH (1986) ** ½

Before Hollywood brought the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie to the big screen, Japan made an hour-long animated feature starring the beloved video game characters.  While Mario is playing a video game, Princess Peach leaps out of the screen and tells him she’s being kidnapped by King Koopa who whisks her back into the television set.  Mario immediately tells his brother Luigi, who thinks he dreamt the whole thing.  Later, the brothers follow a dog down a sewer pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom where the King sends the duo on a quest to find the Princess.  Along the way, they must collect three power-ups (a mushroom, a flower, and a star) in order to defeat the evil Koopa. 

Some of the origin stuff is kind of weird and not in line with the games.  I mean the brothers’ profession is changed from plumbers to grocers.  Why?  Did the animators feel it was unsanitary to base a kids’ movie around two plumbers?  Also, Luigi (who is depicted as being skinnier and taller than Mario for the first time) is kind of an asshole who only goes along on the adventure so he can collect coins and freakout when he eats bad mushrooms.  Speaking of mushrooms, Toad is a woman in this, which is a little odd, but at least her design is more faithful to the game than Mojo Nixon’s character in the live-action movie. 

Despite all that, it’s a fairly decent adaptation.  I especially liked how they used the same sound effects from the game along with a few musical cues.  The way the adventure was broken up into different levels was cool too, although I could’ve done without some of the soft rock musical interludes.  It’s also interesting to note how some of the touches in this movie would go on to be incorporated into later games (like Mario being able to hop into the cloud and drive it around). 

As for the animation itself, it’s fine.  I’ve always been a fan of the Super Mario Bros Super Show, so for me, it pales in comparison to that incarnation.  However, Super Mario Bros.:  Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach remains an interesting, if not entirely successful first attempt to render Mario and company into another medium.