I am not a fan of the movie - been playing the games since I was tiny and paid to see it at the cinema on release, and even That One Kid knew that it was, at best, a confused mess of a movie.
My GF, however, likes it. So we stuck on this extended VHS the other day. She thought it was interesting to see the extra stuff but it was right to cut it from the original film.
Me, I'm stunned at how anyone can look at the first few games (Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3, Super Mario Land and then Super Mario World) and conclude from them that what the film needs is:
a) to be set on Earth initially,
b) to have a cod science explanation for all of the creatures who show up,
c) to have Koopa as human,
d) to have some clunky political nonsense crowbarred in with Koopa, and
e) to have the game worlds actually a dystopian sci-fi future a la Blade Runner or Johnny Mnemonic.
Like, it's not so much that it's a bad film (although it is undoubtedly a bad film IMO), so much as I am baffled at what possible combination of exotic intoxicants would be required for someone to look at the games and come up with that list as the most obvious route for an adaptation. Particularly since Robert De Niro's cameo in Brazil already gives a perfect example of how to take a premise like the Mario games and make a film around it.