The Brothers Mario Turns Lovable Plumbers Into Sadistic Thugs

The Brothers Mario is hands down one of the best mature takes on Super Mario Bros. to hit the internet.

A newly released work of machinima merges Mario‘s concepts with the seriousness of Grand Theft Auto, along with a mafioso theme. The Brothers Mario turns Mario, his friends, and his enemies into gangsters, and re-imagines how their story would play out in a place like Liberty City.

For the record, that story would be epic. The Brothers Mario is a short film created by Country Club Pictures and it perfectly shifts all of Mario’s mythos into the world of GTA. Well, other than the “excuse me princess” line, which is actually from the Zelda cartoon, but I can forgive Country Club this time.

In The Brothers Mario, Goombas are hefty henchmen, Lakitu is a combat helicopter, and King Koopa is the head of a violent crime organization. When gangsters Mario and Luigi pull off a job that nets them thousands of coins (in “?” boxes no less), little do they know that it belongs to Koopa himself, who kidnaps Peach, Mario’s girlfriend. The Mario brothers try to return the money in exchange for Peach, but Koopa pulls a switcheroo by having his man dress up as her instead while hiding the real Peach in another “castle.” Mario and Luigi are forced to team up with fellow thugs Toad and Yoshi to rescue her from Koopa’s clutches.

Lucky for the brothers, Toad comes equipped with a rocket launcher in this version of Mario. Bullet Bill and the Hammer Bros show up as Koopa’s heavy hitters, but they’re no match for the team of Mario and Luigi. Instead of jumping on enemies’ heads in this short film, Mario uses Molotov cocktails to destroy his foes.

I really like how The Brothers Mario inserts Mario references without being corny. Luigi asks a group of thugs with masks if they’re “shy,” referring to the game’s Shy Guys. Mario asks for Luigi to “toss him some shells,” meaning shotgun shells instead of Koopa Troopa shells. Toad blows up a limousine and says: “Now you’re playing with power.”

Mario and Luigi can even jump with the best of them, but only between buildings and away from exploding cars in The Brothers Mario. The ending, which includes a snippet of music from the Mario games, is just perfect. We can only hope that Country Club will have more Brothers Mario for us someday, because this is great stuff.

Thanks for the tip Civatrix!