The Super Mario Galaxy Movie does what the first movie doesn’t — it taps deep into a beloved gaming world that pulses with creativity. Unfortunately, there isn’t a controller in your hands to play it. The sequel goes hard on nostalgic spectacle at the expense of story. Though going for story didn’t exactly help the first film.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie wanted to be The Lego Movie, but the filmmakers didn’t have the storytelling chops of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Meanwhile, Galaxy doesn’t try to emulate anything outside of the games. If you’re a Mario fan, this movie delivers a game-like experience. Minus those darn controllers!
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie constantly hits you with characters, settings, and music from the Mario-verse. It also goes deeper with game-specific elements like deep-cut sound cues, obscure characters, rare power ups, and even specific Smash Brothers fighting moves. And it playfully bounces between animation styles that reflect 40 years of Mario gaming.
Like the movie, like the games, there’s still one main problem. They aren’t much deeper than “The Princess is in another castle.” The first movie was about a yearning to be more than a plumber but didn’t dip past the story bowl. The second movie centers more on the side characters, giving backstories to Princess Peach and her sister Rosalina, and Bowser and his son. But, again, the story only takes a few spins around the bowl.
Jack Black is fantastic as Bowser, especially tiny Bowser. His character arc about being more than a destructive tyrant builds toward something resembling a rich storyline. But then it just fizzles out. Maybe to set up a sequel. Probably to make room for more Easter eggs.
And Yoshi? He just appears on screen to join team Mario. Despite a funny montage attempting to give him a backstory, his purpose beyond getting kids to holler out “Yoshi!” is so shallow that even Toad makes a meta reference to it.
The film is a museum piece, indexing the history of Mario games and delivering those elements with spectacle that goes beyond the first film. More characters. More action. More sparkles.
There are a lot of sparkles.
If you’re a fan of the games, you’ll be happy. The sequel pays loving service to them. That Pavlovian part of your brain will be constantly tickled by the ringing of bells, chimes, laughs, and coin dings you grew up with.
The main issue, again, is the film doesn’t have the one element from the games that make them so much fun. There’s no controller in your hands. It’s one long cutscene. A well-done cutscene with polished CG artistry that games can’t emulate…yet. But still a cutscene.
To compete with games for your attention, films really need to say something. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie only says, “It’s-a-me! A-Mario!” Then it rolls out a dozen odd background bad guys from dozens of games.
If you’re a fan of the games, pop some bubbly to match the sparkling energy of this film. If not you’re not a fan, you may want to ditch the bubbly and go for something stronger. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to follow the story.
🎬🎬🎬
Where to watch
Rating: PG (Me: 4+)
Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic
Starring: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Charlie Day
Run time: 1hr 38m
Post-credits scenes: Mid-credit and post-credits, both potentially setting up future plots and characters.
Sequel? Nothing announced yet, but the film is pretty much printing money. I would expect a sequel and spinoffs.
If you liked The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, check out these films:
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) (4+)
- The Lego Movie (2014) (4+)
- Wreck-It Ralph (2012) (4+)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) (5+)
- Wish (2023) (4+)
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