Rebourne: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

“Plumbing’s Our Game.” – honestly, taglines are a lost art

Directed by Aaron Horvath (Teen Titans GO! to the Movies) and Michael Jelenic (directorial debut)
Starring Chris Pratt (Jurassic World: Dominion), Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma), Charlie Day (Pacific Rim: Uprising), Jack Black (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Keegan-Michael Key (Toy Story 4), Seth Rogen (The Green Hornet) and Fred Armisen (The Mitchells vs. the Machines)

A Brief History of Mario

Back in 1981, the video game Donkey Kong brought a little Japanese company called Nintendo to international notice. It featured a giant ape kidnapping a lady named Pauline, and a man in red known either as ‘Jumpman’ or ‘Mr Video’ trying to rescue Pauline by jumping over barrels and climbing ladders. Intended as a throwaway character, by 1982’s Donkey Kong Jr., he was given the name Mario and became the villain of the piece. Then, 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. saw Mario and his brother Luigi become heroes, and when the arcade game got a sequel on the Nintendo Entertainment System it was known as Super Mario Bros. A franchise was born.

Do-do-doop de-doop-doop.

In Super Mario Bros., Mario traversed side-scrolling, 2D platform levels to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser (aka King Koopa) and his various troops. Over forty years of games, the lore of the franchise was expanded and convoluted: Luigi, originally a colour-swapped Mario, became a distinct character, taller, leaner and more cowardly; additional characters were added – Princesses Daisy and Rosalina, various Toads (toadstool beings who mostly served Peach,) various goons for Bowser, including the magician Kamek; Mario’s evil counterpart Wario and his unrelated partner-in-crime Waluigi – sometimes the characters raced go-karts, or competed in party games to determine who was the ultimate super star; sometimes they were made of paper and menaced by a terrifying Origami King.

So emo.

Often, Mario’s loveable sidekicks would straight-up die at the end of a game. The increasingly cowardly Luigi was lured into exploring no fewer than three haunted mansions. Peach got her shit together and took a lead role in some games, although she still needed rescuing occasionally. The characters played golf and tennis, and even competed in the Olympic Games alongside the characters of the rival Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

The brothers got several TV adaptations, and a famously bad film outing in 1993 starring the late, great Bob Hoskins (The Long Good Friday) and John Leguizamo (John Wick) as Mario and Luigi, and Dennis goddamn Hopper (Easy Rider) as the distinctly not a big lizard ‘President Koopa’.

Okay, briefly a big lizard…

There was a whole thing about a breach to an alternate reality where the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct, Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis, Broken Arrow) hatched from an egg left at apparently the only Catholic orphanage in New York that wasn’t going to go ham on a baby that hatched from an egg. The Mushroom Kings was a neo-noir nightmare fresh off the backlot of Blade Runner. The goombas were weird-looking dinosaur dudes instead of mushrooms, Koopa wanted to merge the alternate worlds with a magic meteroite; there was a scene where Luigi incapacitates a lift full of goombas by making them sway to ‘Lara’s Theme’ from Doctor Zhivago (assuming I didn’t imagine that.)

It was a lot. (Fun fact, although I’ve never reviewed it here, the line ‘this ain’t no game,’ which became my tag for video game adaptations, comes from this movie.)

So, thirty years later, with video game movies making a comeback thanks to Sega’s blue hedgehog, could a new Mario project – this one an animated movie from Minions creators, Illumination – make the grade?

Plumbers.

Mario (Pratt) and Luigi (Day) are brothers, who have just set up their own plumbing business. Plagued by misfortune, they nonetheless set out to help when their neighbourhood is threatened with flooding. In locating and capping a water main, they stumble on and into a network of pipes which transport them to another world.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

“Who needs heroes when you have thieves.”

Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Game Night)
Starring Chris Pine (Wonder Woman), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar), Regé-Jean Page (Mortal Engines), Justice Smith (Pokemon: Detective Pikachu), Sophia Lillis (Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase), Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen), Daisy Head (Underworld: Blood Wars) and Chloe Coleman (65)

Here we go – it’s another movie based on the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game (TM), following in a… less-than proud tradition of very bad movies, low-grade (but cult favourite) animation and, of course, corporate intimidation and fuckwittery by IP holders Wizards of the Coast and their corporate overlords at Hasbro. Honestly, my sympathy for the poor community devs who spent years building a fluffy sense of grass-roots belonging and unity around the most ruthlessly commercialised properties in the nerd space before watching the corporate wing kick it all to pieces knows no bounds.

But to the film…

The first reaction to the trailer was dominated by outrage that the druid wildshaped into an owlbear, which is a monstrosity and not a beast. However, since it has no intrinsic magical powers and is, mechanically, just the next step on a ladder of bears running black-brown-polar-cave-owl, there’s actually no compelling game-balance argument against allowing it.

Held in the famous prison of Revel’s End in famous Icewind Dale, roguish bard Edgin (Pine) tells how he and his friend Holga (Rodriguez) came to be there to the famous Absolution Council; how he was a member of famous secret society for good, the Harpers, before deciding he needed to support his family and turning to crime; how his wife died in a revenge hit by the (in)famous Red Wizards of Thay; how the destitute Edgin met the heartbroken and inebriate Holga and they helped each other through while caring for Edgin’s infant daughter Kira (Coleman, when older); how their team – conman Forge (Grant) and sorcerer Simon (Smith) fell in with the wizard Sofina (Head) and set out to steal a fortune from the Harpers, including the Tablet of Resurrection, the only item which could restore his murdered wife; and how Sofina used a time stop spell to screw them over and leave them to take the fall.

Which is a whole lot of name dropping in the first, breakneck ten minutes of the film, after which Edgin and Holga make a daring – if unknowingly needless – escape from their successful hearing by using an Aarakocra as a parachute, the first of many moments in this film which bear the authentic hallmarks of player character chaotic energy.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

“Welcome to the Next Level”

Directed by Jeff Fowler (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Starring James Marsden (X-Men: The Last Stand), Ben Schwartz (Flora and Ulysses), Tika Sumpter (Nobody’s Fool), Natasha Rothwell (SOnic the Hedgehog), Shemar Moore (The Bounce Back), Colleen O’Shaughnessey (Sailor Moon Super S: The Movie), Lee Majdoub (Dead Rising: Endgame), Idris Elba (Hobbs & Shaw) and Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

Dr Robotnik (Carrey) is able to escape the mushroom planet by sending a signal and making a deal with the one who comes looking for him, Knuckles the Echidna (Elba). Meanwhile, after the events of the first film, Sonic (Schwartz) is living in Green Hills with Tom (Marsden) and Maddie (Sumpter), and attempting to become a superhero – Blue Justice, trademark pending – in Seattle with… mixed results.

Uncharted (2022)

“One ordinary man… One extraordinary adventure”

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Venom)
Starring Tom Holland (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Mark Wahlberg (Transformers: The Last Knight), Sophia Ali (Bad Kids of Crestview Academy), Tati Gabrielle (The Emoji Movie) and Antonio Banderas (The Legend of Zorro)

Separated from his brother Sam after pulling one too many pre-teen museum heists, Nathan Drake (Holland) is living as a barman and pickpocket until Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan (Wahlberg), Sam’s former partner, recruits him to help steal a cross which is one of two keys to the lost treasure of almost the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Ferdinand Magellan. After securing the cross, they meet up with Sully’s untrustworthy contact Chloe Frazer (Ali), who has the other key. Opposing them are Santiago Moncada (Banderas), heir to the banking house that funded Magellan’s voyage and his henchwoman Braddock (Gabrielle).

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

“A whole new speed of hero”

Directed by Jeff Fowler (feature debut)
Starring James Marsden (X-Men: The Last Stand), Ben Schwartz (The Lego Movie 2), Tika Sumpter (Ride Along) and Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

Sonic (Schwartz) is a hedgehog, with the power to move at incredible speed. To keep that power from the wrong hands, his mentor and mother-figure Longclaw (Donna Jay Fulks) sends him through a sufficiently advanced scientific ring to safety. Sonic spends years living in secret near the town of Green Hills, developing a one-sided relationship with its inhabitants, especially ‘Doughnut Lord’ – local sheriff Tom Wachowski (Marsden) – and ‘Pretzel Lady’ – his wife, veterinarian Maddie (Sumpter). When Sonic’s frustration at his lonelieness finally gets the best of him, his temper sprinting releases a massive EMP and draws the attention of the government and their staff mad scientist, Ivo Robotnik (Carrey).

Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)

Directed by Rob Letterman
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy and Ken Watanabe

Sinister AF Pokemon Mewtwo escapes from a lab, and a car is knocked off the road. Tim Goodman (Smith), a small town insurance assessor, learns that his father, Detective Harry Goodman, died in the crash, and comes to Ryme City to collect Harry’s effects from his boss, Lieutenant Yoshida (Watanabe). Here he meets his father’s partner Pikachu (Reynolds), a pokemon who is somehow able to hold complete conversations with Tim, and who ropes him into the search for Harry, convinced that he is still alive.

Rampage (2018)

“Big Meets Bigger”

Directed by Brad Peyton
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Joe Manganiello

In a stricken orbital lab, Dr Atkins (Marley Shelton) is forced by her boss, Claire Wyden (Åkerman), to retrieve biological samples before being allowed into an escape pod. She gets out, but a giant, mutant rat busts up the pod, which implodes on re-entry leaving the three sample cases to fall to Earth.

Tomb Raider (2018)

“Her Legend Begins”

Directed by Roar Uthaug
Starring Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu and Kristin Scott Thomas

Following the disappearance of Lord Richard Croft (West), his daughter Lara (Vikander) scrapes a living as a bike courier, since claiming her inheritance would involve legally recognising his death. Given a puzzle box by his lawyer (a wasted Derek Jacobi), she follows a trail of clues to a secret room under the family crypt, and a message from her father. After her mother’s death, he went all Arthur Conan Doyle and searched the world for evidence of the supernatural and life after death, leading at last to the Mother of Deaths.

The Resident Evil franchise (2002-2012)

 

Alice was not convinced Rain was pulling her weight as a posture pal.

My handle is happyfett, and I remember everything.

Actually, that’s blatantly untrue; memory like a sieve, and in fact I have typically found myself in a Dirty Harry style quandary regarding the Resident Evil movie franchise. Have I seen five movies, or just four? Well, for now at least I know, because with The Final Chapter coming out next year, in time for the franchise’s fifteenth anniversary, I’ve spent the past couple of days catching up as far as possible on the series. I couldn’t get the first and third movies easily, but I had already seen them.

So, here we go with a run down of the first five Resident Evil movies.

Rebourne – Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)

This poster is actually much cleverer than this film deserves.

Directed by Aleksander Bach
Starring Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto and Ciaran Hinds

The Original

Hitman began life as a series of successful computer games, in which the player controls Agent 47, the ‘perfect assassin’; six-four of shaven-headed, barcode tattooed white beefcake with the ability to disguise himself as a Chinese waiter. Using said mastery of disguise and an arsenal of weapons, the player must plan and execute an assassination to meet the terms of a contract.  Some of the games have an ongoing plot i which a series of unconnected jobs add up to a conspiracy, but some are just a series of jobs, and their appeal is not story so much as the replay value inherent in trying various approaches to perfect each kill. The game series was first adapted into a movie in 2007. Hitman was a frankly appalling film in which 47 – played without engagement by Timothy Olyphant, fresh from critically acclaimed yet cancelled TV series Deadwood and with payments due on the mortgage – is betrayed by his superiors as part of an insanely moronic plot to seize control of Russia by treating the entire world as if they were idiots.

The Reboot

So, apparently someone at 20th Century Fox really believed in the potential of a Hitman movie, because despite a modest commercial success and critical mauling, and Timothy Olyphant going on record on the Nerdist podcast to confirm that bit about the mortgage, the collapse of a planned sequel, and the death of intended new Agent 47 Paul Walker, just eight years later they decided to reboot.

In this version, Agent 47 (Friend) is sent to assassinate the founder of the Agent programme, Petr Litvenko (Hinds) and his daughter, Katia Van Dees (Ware), for reasons that are never adequately explored, but possibly as part of a shadow war between two ideologically indistinguishable conspiracies. Katia is initially protected by international man of mystery John Smith (Quinto), before he is revealed as an agent for the Syndicate, the enemy of 47’s International Contracts Agency.