THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Packed with visual references and sprightly animation, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will have young audiences ready to “let’s a-go,” even if adults find it a busy ride. A sequel to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which earned $1.4 billion worldwide, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie bursts with more characters and colorful locations but has a less-cohesive plot. The same creative team—directors Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, and Pierre Leduc, along with screenwriter Matthew Fogel—throws everything they can and then some at the film, aiming to reward Nintendo fans young and old. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. game, after all.
If you’re a Nintendo fan, you’ll get a kick out of spotting various creatures in every inch of the frame. If you’re not, the one with you will happily identify the Shy Guys, Lakitus, Thwomps, Hammer Bros., Spinies, Pokeys, and Cheep Cheeps.
After the previous film’s adventures led them to the Mushroom Kingdom, Brooklyn plumbers Mario (Chris Pratt, Mercy) and his brother, Luigi (Charlie Day, Kill Me), now live there, unclogging warp pipes as needed. One call to a desert locale results in springing loose Yoshi (Donald Glover, The Studio), a Mario-size dinosaur that gobbles everything (and occasionally a character) in sight.
“So, some dinosaur just shows up, and he’s part of the group,” says Toad (Keegan-Michael Key, Only Murders in the Building), the loyal mushroom guard to the feisty pink-clad ruler Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Gorge). Pretty much.
The threat this time stems not from the armored turtle Bowser (Jack Black, Anaconda), now shrunk to mini size and jailed in Peach’s castle, but from his son, Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie, Happy Gilmore 2). Junior, wielding a magical paintbrush that oozes over its quarry, wants to spring his father from custody and impress him with his own maniacal plans. First, though, he has to snatch Rosalina (Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry, Captain Marvel herself), a ruler called “the mother of the stars” who uses her own astral magic to watch over a bevy of stars, called Lumas.
“Your first princess-napping!” gushes his minion Kamek (Kevin Michael Richardson, Invincible) after Junior bests Rosalina in battle.
After a lost Luma asks Peach’s help to free Rosalina, the headstrong princess takes off with Toad, leaving Mario and Luigi in charge of the Mushroom Kingdom’s problems and keeping mini Bowser in line. They soon leave the kingdom to lend Peach a hand, encountering the bee ruler Honey Queen (Issa Rae, Black Mirror) and Star Fox (Glen Powell, The Running Man), a hotshot pilot from another Nintendo property. Powell, channeling his cocksure pilot from Top Gun: Maverick, adds some welcome swagger in the film’s latter half.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie bounces along at a zippy pace, sometimes to its detriment. There’s so much to see, viewers might want a little more time to absorb the sights and game-related sound queues. (I’d love more interaction with the short Day of the Dead-type skeletons in sombreros whose maracas quake when they’re nervous.) The film’s animators deserve a gold star for the visuals, packed with action, texture, and details. The characters act more like their video game counterparts here, not just jumping on blocks to find power-ups but ducking, dodging, and diving around various environments, at times defying gravity.
At one point, Peach and Toad visit a casino for Nintendo’s villains, including a burping frog named Wart (Luis Guzmán, Wednesday). The place is a cube, of course, with games and characters on every surface, even upside-down, enjoying roulette and slots before raining down on and around the pair. Another amusing sequence intercuts between Peach and Mario as they slide and leap around rotating fireballs and other obstacles with Bowser Jr. teeing up more, his display resembling the 8-bit graphics of the early games and the level design of Super Mario Maker. Kudos also for the clever fight choreography, such as showing Peach using a parasol as a shield, a bludgeon, and a parachute.
Story-wise, the plot belongs more to her and Bowser than the Mario Bros., with Peach learning more about her roots and Bowser wondering if he’s a good dad—well, one who’s good at being bad. Black regrettably doesn’t have another chance to belt out a rock ballad here (a hilarious standout from the earlier film), but he still gives Bowser a roaring earnestness that’s oddly endearing.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie stuffs a lot into its one hour 38 minutes, perhaps too much. But young fans, like the ravenous Yoshi, will eat it up.
