OVERVIEW
Picking up where The Super Mario Bros. Movie left off, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie sends Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach into outer space after Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina, a celestial figure with a secret connection to Peach. With a miniaturized Bowser still in captivity and his son determined to restore the family name, the sequel goes bigger on every front: more worlds, more fan-pleasing Nintendo references, and new arrivals including Yoshi and Fox McCloud.
BACKGROUND
Even before The Super Mario Bros. Movie reached theaters in 2023 and became an even bigger hit than most people expected, Nintendo and Illumination were already talking about a sequel and a broader expansion of the franchise. The film went on to become the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time and the second biggest release of that year, just behind Barbie and comfortably ahead of Oppenheimer and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. That success only pushed the second chapter ahead faster: the new film arrived in theaters just two years after its announcement, roughly half the time the original took from start to finish. The full creative team returned, including the voices of Chris Pratt, Jack Black, and Anya Taylor-Joy, with a clear mandate to expand what worked without disrupting it. Whether two years was enough time to find a reason to exist beyond the box office logic that created it is the question the film never quite answers.
THE REVIEW
The film takes Mario and company to space, borrowing the name, characters, and some locations from the two Wii Mario Galaxy games. It is not a faithful adaptation, not that anyone was expecting it to be. Beyond those games, the film also pulls heavily from Super Mario Odyssey, borrowing that game’s structural logic while stuffing the runtime with hundreds of callbacks, whether in the score, in cameos, or in passing mentions. The story is extremely thin, and despite the constant stimulation, very little actually happens.
Even compared to the Sonic trilogy, where new characters were gradually introduced to develop the main character through new dynamics, almost nothing new here adds anything to Mario, whose arc is limited to working up the courage to ask Princess Peach on a date (something left unresolved in this film, because apparently five movies are needed for that to happen). The Mario-Luigi relationship, the emotional spine of the first film, is sidelined entirely. The only characters who get any real development are Peach, who begins the film not knowing where she came from, and Bowser, whose relationship with his son is the one aspect here that is even marginally interesting.
Outside the blink-or-you’ll-miss-it references, the film fills every gap with jokes and gags, none of them funny or original. Beyond recycling the same Bowser humor on Jack Black’s energy (who does not sing this time), it also lifts bits from Zootopia (the slow receptionist), Wall-E (robots frustrated that something broke again seconds after they fixed it), and Despicable Me (the Toads are becoming the new Minions, aren’t they?). When it is not cycling through jokes or references, it runs an action sequence, and those deserve real credit, with the animation team and the direction overall delivering well-crafted chases and fights.
That constant sense of movement, complemented by the relentless score (free of needle drops this time, thankfully), guarantees that young children will not get bored, and the very young will get plenty of laughs. As a film, it feels slightly smaller and more cohesive than the first, which says more about how the original threw so many ideas at the wall than it says anything in this one’s favor; this one is still so frenetic it becomes exhausting. New additions like Yoshi and Fox McCloud are cute but don’t truly add anything (wouldn’t it be better after the end credit sequence of the first film, to have focused the sequel on Yoshi’s story?). Better than the terrible first film? Yes. Still uninteresting and without personality? Absolutely. But look: Pikmin! The dinosaur from Super Mario Odyssey! Donkey Kong for two seconds (they did not want to pay Seth Rogen this time?)! Each one lands a little cheer and disappears, which is the whole film in miniature.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Like the first film, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is more a collection of reels than a cohesive film, invested in cramming as many references as possible at breakneck pace while the story and characters underneath remain as shallow as a Dry Bones’ skull. Bowser’s arc brings some slight amusement, and the animation is undeniably strong, especially in the action scenes, but beneath all the noise and colors, the film is simply boring. Coming from Illumination and aimed squarely at young children, expecting the wit and intelligence of something like The Lego Movie or Wreck-It Ralph is too much, but even Sonic proves that a better balance between pleasing fans and crafting an adventure that stands on its own is possible. Once again, one of the most creative and addictive video game franchises of all time has been distilled into its safest, most predictable form, and that is an utter disappointment.