Dennis Hopper’s ‘Super Mario Bros.’ Performance Deserves More Love

Dennis Hopper in 'Super Mario Bros.' is such a delightfully weird performance that could only be delivered by this unhinged performer.

With 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, fans of the most popular plumber in history will finally get a movie that’s reverent of the classic video game franchise. That’s in sharp contrast to the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros., which reimagined the entire Mario mythology through a dystopian sci-fi filter in the vein of Total Recall or RoboCop. The movie is messy and often struggles to bridge the gap between an obligation to be a Mario movie and its outlandish creative instincts. Still, there’s a surprising amount to like in this movie, especially in the longer director's cut that lets some of the more peculiar elements have even more room to breathe.

Among those commendable qualities is a performance delivered by the legendary Dennis Hopper as the movie’s villain, King Koopa A.K.A. Bowser. He doesn’t bear much resemblance to the traditional version of the character he’s inhabiting, but Hopper’s still incredibly fun to watch in these confines.

There’s no better distillation for just how unabashedly oddball Dennis Hopper was than in his appearances in the Apocalypse Now making-of documentary Hearts of Darkness. Showing up to shoot a seemingly small role, Hopper ends up staying on the set for a while and is constantly irritating those around him, including Marlon Brando and director Francis Ford Coppola. The jittery and unpredictable energy emanating off of Hopper in the theatrical cut of Apocalypse Now wasn’t just invented for the silver screen. The raw behind-the-scenes footage of Hopper makes it apparent that he was similarly a wild card during shooting.

Go through his lengthy history in Hollywood, and you'll find no shortage of stories about Hopper being wild on the set of his movies (sometimes as a result of his difficulty with drugs and alcohol). What could make him frustratingly unpredictable to studio executives, though, made him such a delight to watch on-screen in roles where he got to let loose. Who could ever forget his most unhinged line deliveries as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, for instance, while Hopper reveled in the relentless madness of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and injected so much personality into his nefarious Speed villain while being largely confined to just one location. Dennis Hopper was talented enough to be believable in more grounded dramas like Cool Hand Luke, but he solidified his reputation as a legend by just going off-the-wall in even the most divisive of projects…like Super Mario Bros.

The Super Mario Bros. version of King Koopa is a far cry from the version of the character gamers would’ve been familiar with in the early 1990s. This incarnation of the foe is a slimy politician who keeps such a firm grasp over his terrain that he’ll send cops to arrest anyone who dares to criticize him. Koopa is also defined as an exorbitantly wealthy soul, living out his days in a posh palace and spending his time relaxing in a massive mud bath. He is the 1% embodied, a bourgeoisie counterpart to how ordinary plumbers Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) are representatives of the working class.

Koopa’s plan involving a shard from a meteorite and the displaced Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) doesn’t make much sense. But within that incoherency, Hopper unleashes a deluge of memorable acting flourishes. Within one of his first lines, Hopper speaks the word “mammals” with such repulsion and energy that it’s doubtful one will ever be able to hear the word the same way ever again. He’s also incapable of engaging in any conversation without eventually going into a screaming match, this dude is always just second’s away from blowing his stack. That’s bad news for anyone who’s stuck with working or living with King Koopa, but good news for viewers eager to see Hopper chew up the scenery.

There’s also the choice on the part of both Hopper and directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel to have King Koopa constantly walk and talk like a slimeball politician. Countless memes have already been made over Koopa’s resemblance to Donald Trump (who was then just a wealthy real estate mogul accused of engaging in racial discrimination). But Hopper’s general attitude is emblematic of insincere politicians in any era of history, complete with how the character can barely conceal his treacherous nature. It’s an amusing way to “ground” a villain who boasts about being evolved from a T-Rex, yearns for a piece of a meteorite, and wants to use a de-evolve gun on human beings. The dissonance between Hopper’s real-world inspiration and the incredibly preposterous evil plots of King Koopa often makes this performance akin to Gordon Gecko showing up as the primary antagonist of Future War.

Meanwhile, the disinterest in having King Koopa resemble his video game counterpart in any way (the closest we get is the character briefly de-evolving to a T-Rex in the climax) means that Hopper has even more room to get weird with his part. Freed from the constraints of even being slightly close to what Mario fans would consider an “accurate” version of this classic video game villain, Hopper can just run rampant and do whatever weird dialogue deliveries or gestures pop into his head. There’s totally a way to do a faithful version of King Koopa/Bowser that still affords an actor creative flexibility. But eschewing the source material when it came to this adversary in the case of Super Mario Bros. at least offered more room for Dennis Hopper to go maximum Dennis Hopper.

Sometimes, all it takes is a line to seal the deal that what one is watching is an exceptional performance. With Dennis Hopper in Super Mario Bros., that line comes when King Koopa is submerged in a mud bath, with only his head poking out. As he talks to his cohort (and presumably wife) Lena (Fiona Shaw), King Koopa finally remarks “You know what I love about mud? It’s dirty and clean at the same time!” This delightfully nonsensical line is delivered with an incredible amount of conviction by Hopper, he might as well be reading off the words of William Shakespeare or August Wilson considering how much power he’s bringing to his line deliveries. I’m especially fond of the way he spits out the word “mud” and that subsequent evil cackle.

With this line, viewers of Super Mario Bros. not only have something to quote at one another once the film is done but also something that epitomizes why Hopper’s so good here. There’s an unabashedly ridiculous quality to this iteration of King Koopa. Normally, movies depart from their outlandish source material to make them more “grounded,” but here King Koopa/Bowser was overhauled just to make him another flavor of preposterous. Combining that outrageousness with such a dedicated and appropriately unhinged Dennis Hopper performance makes for an incredibly fun villain. It’s enormously understandable why Super Mario Bros. hasn’t taken off as a beloved movie for many longtime fans of the Mario franchise. But can’t we all at least appreciate the bravura qualities Dennis Hopper shows here in such a bizarre reimagining of King Koopa?

Lisa Laman is a life-long movie fan, writer, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her Features writing for Collider, her byline has been seen in outlets like Polygon, The Mary Sue, Fangoria, The Spool, and ScarleTeen. She has also presented original essays related to the world of cinema and pop culture at multiple academic conferences. Lisa's favorite kind of movies are anything that gets her soul stirred and her mind racing, though she does have a special fondness for musicals and anything anchored by lesbians. Residing both on the Autism spectrum and in Texas, Lisa is a lady who adores pugs, showtunes, the Wes Anderson movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, and any music by Carly Rae Jepsen.