Fun
Summary
Like its predecessor, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a ton of fun, with bright visuals and amazing callbacks. Just don’t think about what is going on too much.
Plot: Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day) have to travel to the stars to find Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy), who is searching for her kidnapped sister, Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson).
Review: I had a lot of fun with the first Super Mario Bros. animated movie that dropped in 2023. That being said, I was a little trepidacious about seeing this movie – yes, it looked like a fun adventure, but how much more could they mine for this film? How long until they started to get into stuff that I couldn’t relate to? I’m a retro gamer, after all, and my experience with the world of Mario ended after Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.
The fact that I was asking this question demonstrates how niche this movie series is. If you have not been a fan of the world of Mario since day one, you’re not going to understand a lot of this movie. Proof was in the theatre I watched the movie in – it was full of kids, and when characters from the world of Nintendo I knew appeared, the majority of the audience fell silent. When a big cameo came at the end of the movie, adults called out their name…but the kids did not react. If you think this is a movie for your kids, I would say it won’t have as much impact on them as it may have on you.
As for the movie itself, it’s bright, colourful, and just one big adventure. That’s it. If that’s all you care about, then stop reading and see the movie—especially if you’re a fan of the Super Mario games. For me, that’s it, but it still is a movie, so I have to talk about it.
The plot is somewhat rubbish. It has humour and charm, but damn if I didn’t know what the hell was happening a significant chunk of the time. It seems that Rosalina is kidnapped at the beginning of the movie and just hangs out in Bowser’s world for a lot of it, trapped in a glass bubble. Peach goes after her, and Mario goes after Peach, and along the way, they bump into not only Mario game legends or two, but also Nintendo character legends. It’s fun, but a bit of a mess. What’s going on, who’s doing what, what’s the purpose of this? Just shut up and watch it, the film seems to say.
The voice acting is fine – I still find it hard to believe that the voices belong to the actors when the credits roll. Either the casting is great, or the voice editing is fantastic. In any case, all the voices fit, and no one is stupid. The characters are all on point, except a teased Bowser face turn that was entirely unnecessary – Bowser is not a good guy. Don’t try to convince us he’s turning good. Luckily, there’s a course correction, but the time when they’re trying to convince you that he isn’t so bad is a complete waste. The runtime is just under two hours, and for the most part, it breezes, thanks to the almost constant action. However, the Bowser tease and Luigi’s constant references to Mario that he should date Peach get old.
The score, as you would expect from Brian Tyler, is fantastic. There are so many classic Mario themes and sound effects buried in the movie, it completely immerses you—it feels like a Mario property, shamelessly, and for that, I applaud it. Too many times, we watch movies as fans of something, and there’s lip (or fan) service, but no substance. That’s not the case with this movie or the previous one. It feels like a Mario game, and whether it’s switching to 8-bit for a sequence or two, playing a sound effect of warping, or a few bars of an infamous stage from the first Super Mario game, the filmmakers are obviously huge fans. They’re making these movies for huge fans, and if you’re not one of those, you won’t get it.
That wraps it up. If you grew up with the Mario games, you’ll love this movie. Will it bring in new fans? Hard to say. If you haven’t already hopped on the Mario train, I doubt today’s kids are going to go back to the 8-bit era and relive all the classic moments that these movies bring back to me. So, great for older fans, but probably won’t resonate with future generations.