Well, you've got the link to it on Dailymotion, and since most of society is closed down, you've got no excuse but to watch it.
I saw it, and how unexpected that was. I also watched Blow after it, but I still can comment on it.
The movie is definitely in the same genre of Blade Runner, but suffers from what it seems to be massive amounts of editing. Not to mention this is a comedy too.
They present a dystopian cyberpunk post-apocalyptical city composed of a humanoid reptilian race, where the reptilians want to escape from their hideout to merge with the civilization humans have evolved into.
It almost feels as if some conspiracy theorist from 1993 wrote this.
That said, under further scrutiny we can spot that the narration does have some actual Mario lore.
In Mario's lore Bowser always wants to merge the kingdoms, and space, time, interdimensional travel isn't uncommon, but that last part only appears on games after 1993.
Whoever wrote this went out of their way to also hide fan service into the movie, but not the kind of fan service you expect the general public to understand, instead the fan service only hardcore fans will have a chance to get.
It is crazy how much of this is in the movie. Just to give an example:
At the beginning of the movie Mario tries to go to his plumbing work, but Luigi is the one driving.
The place is supposed to be on the left, but Luigi decides to go right with the claim that it would be faster that way.
Well, in real life we know this is impossible, but in the Mario Universe it makes sense because as seen in 1983's Mario Bros. we know you can go right on the screen, and appear on the left side.
Only a hardcore fan would be able to spot that joke.
They also showed things like how Goombas and Koopa Troopas are incredibly stupid, trying to resemble the low AI design of those characters in the games, portraying them as characters anyone can easily step on them.
And they even recreated very iconic moments of the games, like the battle between Mario and Bowser in Super Mario World:
However it looks like too many people were fighting over the final editing, and a lot of things were changed, edited, or removed at the last moment.
It doesn't surprise me the movie even had two different directors. It shows this was pushed to go on too many different ways.
This was definitely rushed out because the movie has a lot of great potential.
Also sadly, the artstyle looks like it has been taken from the future PS3 brown era of games, and it makes everything look ugly, and unappealing.
Not the kind of visuals you expect from a franchise that is supposed to be psychedelic, and colourful.
The trippy moments were just underwhelming, like showing worlds merging, Mario falling on another dimension, the twin towers disappearing from the map, or seeing Daisy being born from an egg, which is not trippy enough in comparison with the source material.
Sure, the Mario franchise lore is fucked up, and very dark, but the whole point is that you don't show that because the psychedelic mushrooms are supposed to hide it ala We Happy Few.
So because of this horrible editing, cuts, and changes the movie is basically trash. It tries to do too many things, and fails at everything for a lack of agreement between whoever was putting this together.
No wonder I completely blocked the memories of watching this from my mind, except for Bowser, which I clearly remember, but to be fair I also don't remember the TMNT movies at all, all I remember is that I loved them, and that they were like a 10 to me.
Maybe I just was too young, but I honestly don't think I would had liked this movie as a kid, and if I did, I was probably thinking of the TV show.
