Luigi (film character)

Luigi
Full name	Luigi Mario
Species	Human
First appearance	Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Portrayed by	John Leguizamo

Luigi Mario, played by John Leguizamo, is a main character in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film. He is the younger brother to Mario Mario, and the two run their family plumbing business based in Brooklyn, New York named Mario Bros. Plumbing together. He takes inspiration from the Mario video game series character Luigi, while also incorporating notable differences to establish him as a separate character. Unlike his video game counterpart, he has no mustache, and is also depicted as being the braver of the two brothers and most willing to dive into adventure. This contrasts with the video game Luigi that is commonly depicted as very fearful, shy and scared.

History

Background

As Mario and Luigi mention in one scene, Luigi was raised by his older brother, Mario, at a young age. Luigi mentions having never known his parents or family so he sees Mario as having fulfilled the role of mother, father, uncle and brother. It is not elaborated on the circumstances of what happened to the parents, though Mario mentions having learned plumbing knowledge from his father (who learned said knowledge from Mario's grandfather). As the two brothers grew older, Mario trained Luigi in the plumber business and the two have been working as plumbers in the "Mario Brothers Plumbing" but their business has been tapering and they have been running low on money.

Super Mario Bros. film

The film introduces Mario and Luigi living together in their Brooklyn home, where they operate their plumbing business out of. Mario is taking a phone call regarding a plumbing job at the Riverfront Cafe, while Luigi is watching a television show named Our Miraculous World. The Our Miraculous World broadcast is covering a story about a man named Egon that claims to have teleported to an alternate dimension. Luigi takes interest to the story, though Mario takes no interest in it and turns the television off. Mario and Luigi begin bickering about their financial troubles, and Mario complains about Luigi spending their money on a New York Post newspaper. Luigi explains the paper covers the story about various Brooklyn girls that have gone missing, which Mario takes no interest to either.

Mario and Luigi board their Mario Bros. Plumbing branded white van to the Riverfront Cafe, with Luigi at the wheel. Luigi begins driving erratically through alleyways claiming its his intuition telling him to take a shortcut, which upsets Mario. The two arrive at the cafe, but are disappointed to discover a Scapelli Construction van beat them there to the job. The two begin to drive back home, but their van breaks down. Mario heads inside a nearby shop to get water to cool the radiator down, while Luigi is tasked by Mario to check the payphone for plumbing job requests. As he is doing so, he notices Daisy approach nervously waiting to use the payphone. Luigi hands the phone to her. Mario emerges from the store and fixes the van, and Luigi lets Mario know he has taken interest in Daisy. Mario convinces Luigi to offer Daisy a ride, which she accepts. The brothers drop Daisy off at her destination, an excavation dig site, where Luigi is prompted by Mario to ask her to dinner which she accepts.

Later that night, Luigi and Daisy with Mario and his girlfriend, Daniella, are on a double date at an Italian restaurant named the Bella Napoli. While there, Daisy explains the situation behind their dig: Anthony Scapelli and his construction company found iridium at the site, suggesting a meteorite struck the area, which may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. The necklace Daisy wears is then brought up, and she explains that she never removes it because it is the only link between her and her mother before she was abandoned. Luigi brings up the story behind his childhood, and as the two look into their eyes, Mario decides that he and Daniella can take the van while Luigi and Daisy walk and get to know each other.

As they walk and converse, the conversation leads to Daisy taking Luigi to show him her work on the dig site. At the site, she leads him to an underground sewer and shows him several dinosaur fossils. She notes to him the strange human-like features shown by the fossils. They move in to kiss, but are interrupted by the sound of flowing water, along with two Scapelli Construction workers running off. They discover Scapelli's workers have destroyed some of the pipelines to sabotage Daisy's project, and the cavern begins flooding. Luigi and Daisy run to retrieve Mario, and they return to the dig site where the brothers begin repairing the plumbing. As they fix the pipes, they are knocked out by Iggy and Spike and the two kidnap Daisy and take off running.

Mario and Luigi notice Daisy is missing when they awaken, and Mario uses the echos through the pipes to locate her and track her down. They come to a precipice and a rock wall, through which Daisy's voice can be heard. She is able to partly pop her head through the wall, and Luigi attempts to grab her, but only succeeds in taking her necklace. Unbeknownst to the brothers, this necklace carries a meteorite piece from the original meteor that caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Luigi leaps through the rocky boulder wall after Daisy, and he disappears into it. A skeptical Mario trips into it and the brothers are taken to the meteorite chamber in the Dinohattan dimension. They continue following Daisy's screams for help and the brothers find themselves in Koopa Square, as Spike, Iggy and Daisy disappear and drive away in a taxi cab. The brothers fall through a grate to a lower section of Koopa Square, and begin taking in their surroundings.

Walking through the city, Mario and Luigi encounter an old lady, who asks if they are "new in town". She tells them it is a dangerous environment if they are unarmed. When Luigi states that they are, the woman attempts to rob them for Koopa coins but notices Daisy's necklace Luigi is holding and snatches it away. Big Bertha comes up from behind her, taking the necklace and tossing the old lady into a car. She then uses her Thwomp Stompers to jump away from the area. Luigi is disappointed by the circumstances, but the two continue and meet a street musician named Toad. Toad begins singing them a political anti-Koopa song to cheer them up. Police arrive at the scene and begin arresting Toad, and Mario and Luigi attempt to interfere, confused as to why Toad would be arrested over singing. The officer notices the brothers are carrying plumbing equipment, and begins arresting the brothers as well.

At the police station, Mario and Luigi introduce themselves to Sergeant Simon, the head of the Dinohattan police force. Sergeant Simon is confused by their unusual last name, and sends them on through the precinct as the Fungus Unit sanitizes them and clears them of any fungus. They are then imprisoned in a caged cell, with Toad's cage positioned above them. Toad begins explaining to the brothers that they are in a parallel dimension to Earth called Dinohattan. When a meteorite struck the Earth millions of years ago, the worlds were split into two dimensions: on Earth, dinosaurs became extinct and mammals evolved and took over; in Dinohattan, mammals perished and dinosaurs evolved into humanoid-like beings. He explains he has a personal theory that the fungus substance that has been spreading throughout the entirety of the Dinohattan city is the former King of Dinohattan turned into fungus by President Koopa, the current dictator in charge.

Mario and Luigi are removed from their cells and taken into an office, where they are introduced to a character claiming to be their lawyer and that his name is "Larry Lazard". In reality, this is President Koopa attempting to gain the brothers' trust to find out where the meteorite necklace is. Mario and Luigi initially trust this character at first, asking him about Koopa, and President Koopa responds that he is "one evil, egg-sucking son of a snake." President Koopa asks the brothers where the meteorite piece, and upon their confusion, Koopa angrily begins inserting his thumbs into Luigi's eyes. Mario pushes President Koopa off, and Sergeant Simon shocks him with a stun stick.

Mario and Luigi are led to the Devo Chamber, where Toad is strapped to a chair. President Koopa demonstrates his De-evolution technologies by turning Toad into a Goomba, a tall, unintelligent lizard-like creature loyal to President Koopa. President Koopa explains the process of his machine capable of de-evolving characters into earlier iterations of their species, and President Koopa explains he is an evolved descendant of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. An enraged Mario and Luigi become enraged when they realize what has been done to Toad, and Mario shoves President Koopa into the chair while Luigi begins fighting a Devo Chamber technician to try and de-evolve President Koopa. The machine is briefly turned on, and the brothers take off running as it is turned off by the Devo Chamber technician. Koopa grows in fury and demands the capture of the brothers.

Mario and Luigi hide behind a pillar covered in fungus, and Luigi notes that the fungus is dangling a Bob-omb towards him. Luigi takes interest to it, though Mario advises him not to take it, and the two continue their escape from the Goombas pursuing after them. They escape swinging down a zip line while Goombas use their fireball guns to shoot at them. They arrive at a garage, where they hijack a police car. Luigi is able to turn on the electrical car, which surprises Mario, and Luigi credits his expertise in electronics to his constant video game playing. Mario begins driving the hijacked police car, as they are pursued by more police vehicles. Mario is able to fool two of the police vehicles to shoot one another with fire, and upon Luigi's suggestion, the two take the Koopahari Desert tunnel. They soon realize the tunnel road is unfinished, and the car warns them they have left the city's power grid and promptly shuts down. Mario screams out that there are no brakes in the car, and the car is sent flying out of the unfinished road cliff of the tunnel. The overgrown fungus in the tunnel takes hold of their car, and safely drags them closer to the ground so that they can safely dismount.

They begin trekking through the desert, arguing which one of the two is to blame for their predicament. As they wander, they hear Spike and Iggy crash their vehicle and become submerged in quicksand. The brothers capture them, tying them to one another with Luigi's belt, and the brothers interrogate Spike and Iggy. Spike and Iggy explains that President Koopa is seeking the meteorite piece because it holds the power to merge the two parallel dimensions, and he intends to conquer them both. When Mario asks why President Koopa didn't come over to Earth to retrieve it himself, Spike and Iggy explain that the path was sealed for years until someone re-opened it; Mario reasons it must have inadvertently been Scapelli and his construction team. The brothers come to an agreement with Spike and Iggy; they will trade the meteorite piece for Daisy's return. They agree to the proposal, but they inform Spike and Iggy that the rock pendant has been stolen. Upon given a description of its captor, Spike reasons it must be Big Bertha, who works at the Boom Boom Bar.

Mario and Luigi come to a junk yard operated by Snifits. Mario and Luigi knock out some Snifits near a Sludge Gulper, and they hijack the vehicle to drive back into the city, using Snifit masks to bypass the security guard. Iggy and Spike then lend the brothers their ex-wives' clothes to sneak into the Boom Boom Bar. The brothers leave their plumbing gear with the Hat Check Girl, who notices they are the wanted fugitives on a poster and she calls the number on the poster. Mario successfully retrieves the meteorite pendant after dancing with Big Bertha, just as Lena and several Goombas arrive. Mario and Luigi attempt to thwart the Goombas, tossing the meteorite necklace back and forth, but Mario drops it and it is picked up by Lena. Big Bertha helps Mario and Luigi escape, knocking out the Hat Check Girl, and taking the brothers in her hat check room. She barricades the door, and instructs them to take a pair of Thwomp Stompers from the room. The two leap out of a window with the Thwomp Stompers, and escape through a catwalk. During this escape, Luigi notices the fungus offering him a Bob-omb again, and this time he grabs it. As they become cornered by Goombas, they notice a Sludge Gulper passing on the road below them and the two brothers jump into the back of the moving truck with the garbage.

The Sludge Gulper conveniently dumps them off at the entrance of Koopa's Tower. Inside, upon Mario's directions, they mess with the building's heating system pipes and an alarm begins ringing out. They find a locker room with mechanic outfits and they don them. These outfits more closely resemble the iconic overalls and hats the two brothers wear in their video game depictions. As they head into an elevator, the elevator begins filling up with various Goombas. The two are able to successfully hide from the Goombas' views, standing directly behind their towering bodies. Luigi takes note of the elevator music playing inside, and begins gently rocking the Goomba in front of him side to side. Though Mario is stressed and hesitant, he follows Luigi's lead, and they begin rocking the Goombas one by one. The Goombas all begin dancing to the elevator tune, distracting them, and the brothers take the chance to escape out of the elevator.

Continuing on their way, they are stopped by what appears to be a bottomless chasm. Luigi claims he is feeling an intuition, and makes a blind leap towards the bottomless pit and is pleasantly surprised to find himself suspended, floating in midair. He convinces Mario to jump, but tries to stop him once he realizes he is not flying but rather his belt got stuck to a hook and that is what's been suspending him in mid-air. Mario begins falling down the bottomless pit, but the fungus in the shaft begins forming into a trampoline-like creation. The fungus bounces Mario up and down twice, and Luigi catches him and the two swing over to safety. Daisy communicates with them over an intercom. As they reach the shaft, Daisy informs them that she is located in Devo 4. Inside, Luigi notices that the fungus inside is once again attempting to communicate with them and he takes a glowing Mushroom growing on the fungus. Moving on, they are eventually able to reach the Devo 4 chamber, where Daisy introduces the brothers formally to her father; Daisy explains that he used to be the king, but was de-evolved into the fungus around the city by President Koopa. Luigi nervously and awkwardly tries to make conversation with the King's fungus form, expressing pleasure in getting to formally meet him for the first time.

While Mario heads to save Daniella and the other missing Brooklyn girls, Luigi and Daisy head outside to Koopa Square and the two groups are able to be reunited once Mario escapes out the Goomba Barracks with the girls on a mattress. President Koopa also arrives to the scene with his flamethrower. Luigi takes a Bullet Bill cartridge from a nearby shelf and hands it to Mario, who uses it to load into a Thwomp Stomper and send it flying at President Koopa, which hits him and launches him into a vat hanging over the city streets. Luigi advises Mario to "trust the fungus," and Mario takes note of this and begins climbing the fungus to get closer to Koopa and begin fighting him. Luigi and the Brooklyn girls witness President Koopa lose the meteorite necklace, which Lena picks up and takes off running with. Luigi, Daisy and the other kidnapped girls follow Lena to the meteorite chamber.

At the meteorite chamber, Luigi tells the Brooklyn girls to head back to Earth to warn everyone, and they take his directions and flee into the rock wall portal back to New York. Luigi and Daisy yell out to Lena to not insert the meteorite into the chamber, but she does so. The dimensions start merging, and Lena is unable to withstand its power, which kills her and turns her into a skeleton embedded into the wall. Luigi and Daisy begin using their plumbing tools to try and attempt to remove the meteorite piece. They eventually succeed, and the two dimensions begin merging again. As they head back to Mario and his fight with President Koopa, they encounter Toad, who hands them Devo Guns, and Big Bertha, who gives Luigi another pair of Thwomp Stompers. Luigi joins Mario on the catwalks over the city, and hands him a Devo Gun. The two brothers begin to fire upon President Koopa. As he is being blasted, the Bob-omb that Luigi nabbed earlier and Mario used during his fight with Koopa completes its journey and detonates directly underneath President Koopa, sending him flying into the same vat from earlier above the street. Seconds later, he emerges as a miniature Tyrannosaurus. The Mario Brothers blast him once more, which causes him to de-evolve into primordial slime. With President Koopa defeated, all the Dinohattan citizens begins to celebrate, taking to the streets dancing.

In the meteorite chamber, Daisy uses the meteorite piece to re-open the portal between the Earth and Dinohattan. Luigi wants Daisy to return to New York with them, but she expresses that she feels it is her duty to stay around and rebuild Dinoahattan and she also needs time to get to know her father. Disappointed but understanding, Luigi kisses Daisy goodbye, and Daisy, Toad and Yoshi wave the brothers goodbye. Three weeks later, Daniella has moved in with Mario and Luigi and is preparing dinner for them. Luigi is called in to join Mario and Daniella for dinner, but Luigi proudly motions that he is watching Our Miraculous World, where they are running a broadcast speaking about the brothers' heroic adventure. The television host calls them the "Super Mario Brothers". Unexpectedly, Daisy enters the room wearing military gear, stating she needs the brothers' help and that they are not going to believe what has happened. The brothers quickly begin strapping on their plumber tool belts and head out.

Gallery

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  Luigi in the Kodansha Super Mario manga next to his video game counterpart (middle panel)