If you like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie or its 2023 predecessor (The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the second-biggest film of that year, situated squarely between Barbie and Oppenheimer), then in all likelihood, you and I will never be friends. That’s not a judgment call based on your tastes; it’s simply a comment on how we’ve led our lives up to this point. If seeing any of the Mario Bros. video games come to life in these animated adventures excites you, that likely means gaming was a priority in your formative years that it simply wasn’t for me. Instead of trying to make my way through levels of whatever the popular game was, I was watching movies—simple as that—so gaming never became a part of my DNA. Not that I haven’t enjoyed a film or two based on a video game (although even that is a rarity). One lifestyle isn’t better than the other; they are just radically different, and as a result, I mostly hated this movie.
Based on the 2007 Super Mario Galaxy game and its 2010 sequel, as well as other games in Nintendo’s Mario franchise, this latest film expands the universe of Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day), the plumbers who do almost no actual plumbing. Instead, they save princesses and entire galaxies (as the title implies) when needed. The film opens with a new, outer space princess named Rosalina (Brie Larson) being kidnapped from her adoptive Lumas (they’re like little, puffy star babies) by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), the son of the last movie’s key villain, Bowser (Jack Black). He is King of the Koopas and is presently shrunken quite small and in the custody of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, including her right-hand schroom Toad (Keegan-Michael Key). Got it? Good, now explain it to me because I’m lost.
Since the last film, Mario has fully realized his feelings for Peach, but is convinced he doesn’t have a shot so refuses to say anything to her. Instead, he and Luigi go with her to rescue who turns out to be her sister, Rosalina. Along the way, they pick up a couple of allies, including a cute dinosaur named Yoshi (Donald Glover) and a spaceship pilot (and clear Han Solo ripoff) Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), star of his own video game series and leader of the Star Fox team. There is also voice work by fun people like Luiz Guzman and Issa Rae, but that hardly matters because the screenplay from Matthew Fogel is so thinly written that no one really gets time to shine or be known in any substantial way.
Most of the characters have one distinguishing trait that is the only thing that drives them, and the plot essentially consists of some sort of adversity popping up in one moment, and then it’s taken care of in the next scene. I wish I were exaggerating, but that is the basic pattern of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (both of whom directed the previous film and worked on the vastly superior Teen Titans GO! To the Movies), this new installment is expansive, colorful, energetic, and occasionally humorous, and those elements do count for something. But for most of the film, you get a sense that they are throwing in familiar characters and settings that will probably mean a great deal to people who play the games and no one else. Admittedly, we’re talking tens of millions of fans, so it’s not like it’s nobody; but it really is basic animated kids fare that made me feel exactly nothing.
The only emotional tension in the movie is whether Bowser is going to allow his friendly feelings toward Peach and her friend to prevail, or if he’ll side with his evil-inclined offspring, who really is a d-bag but essentially just a tiny version of the way his father used to be. Whatever he decides, I can promise you I won’t care one way or the other.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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