Super Mario Bros.

The Mario industry is the biggest outpouring of the computer age - and all from the ramblings of two Brooklyn plumbers of Italian extraction, who spend their time leaping and bouncing, dodging turtles and dinosaurs. What do punters reap for 48 million bucks? Hoskins mugging in a romper-suit; Hopper mugging as a Lizard King villain; Shaw ditching her cred as villainess Lena; and a garbled storyline about Dinohattan, where a parallel reptilian world exists some 65 million years after a meteorite supposedly wiped out all the big lizards. Yes, designer David L Snyder has done wonders with the set; yes, there's decent photography and effects; yes, the giant Goombas are splendid. But the whole is not a dinosaur, it's a dog. It will baffle kids, bore adolescents, and depress adults.