The ‘Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Is Definitely a Movie About Mario

Imagine a film that features a stacked cast with colorful, charismatic actors like Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Donald Glover, Issa Rae, Luis Guzman, and Brie Larson. Now, picture a picture whose characters are so bland, so generic, so one-dimensional, so forgettably inert that not one of their voices truly animates this cartoonish attempt at entertainment. But, hey, The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed over a billion dollars in 2023, so now we have The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ★ (1/5 stars)
Directed by: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Written by: Matthew Fogel
Starring: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Donald Glover, Issa Rae, Luis Guzman, Brie Larson
Running time: 98 mins

Corporate overlord Comcast just sunk a few billion dollars into opening new theme parks at Universal Orlando, including Super Nintendo World, which means that they need to keep pumping out Mario-branded content. And Illumination, the animation division at Comcast’s NBCUniversal responsible for making four Despicable Me features and three Minions features over the past 16 years, sure knows how to pump out content. So put down your game controller and hoof it over to the theaters, you content cucks: movie-star Mario is back and will never leave us.

Like any sequel, Galaxy Movie introduces new faces to the Mario Cinematic Universe (literally the universe, since this time we’re in space). In addition to plumbers Mario (Pratt) and Luigi (Day), their turtle nemesis Bowser (Black), and the entrancing Princess Peach (Joy), we now get mushroom sidekick Toad (Key), Bowser Jr. (Safdie), giddy dinosaur Yoshi (Glover), and Rosalina (Larson), whom the internet tells me is not royalty nor anyone’s sibling but in his movie has been leveled up to be both a princess and Peaches’ older sister.

I list these characters because it’s more interesting than justifying the film’s barely-there plot. Also, because I’m not a gamer and I’ve only had a passing knowledge of Mario gameplay from looking over my kid’s shoulder when she plays. As far as I can tell, Galaxy Movie is way more interested in name-checking folks and cracking a joke or two before moving its ADD-addled focus onto some other sight gag. You want a story? What a sucker!

Fine, to the extent it exists, here it is: Bowser Jr., desperate to impress his dad, kidnaps Rosalina and uses her celestial powers to create an entire planet (Planet Bowser, obviously) topped with a “Boomsday” Gun so he can destroy the cosmos. None of this make sense, of course: Bowser Jr., a prep-school reject teenage turtle, somehow has the means enough to command an enormous intergalactic space ship and the guts enough to force his captive to do his bidding. All this, even though Rosalina literally is the Guardian of the Cosmos and Master of the Stars, and I would assume could escape his grasp anytime she wants by creating an exit portal for herself.

Did I say portal? I should have said pipe. This goddamned movie is so full of random pipes and tubes pockmarking planets everywhere that characters jump in and out of them to travel hither and thither, wherever and whenever it’s convenient. Mario and Luigi are Italian plumbers (their nondescript accents are, of course, the studio’s way to soften the already blatantly offensive stereotype), so it I guess it makes sense that there are so many pipes and tubes.

In the video game, it does make sense — as much as anything needs to make sense in a video game. Which it clearly doesn’t, because it’s a goddamned video game. Which is why they’re fun to play. The only thing that matters in a video game is how to score points and win. In movies, not so much. The objective in Mario Galaxy should be to tell audiences an engaging story about how Mario and Luigi find and rescue Rosalina. It should have internal logic, surprising obstacles, and vivid characters so that we are thrilled and moved by all the hijinks.

Why do I feel like I’m giving studio notes to incompetent filmmakers? How old-fashioned. Let me reframe the issue in a way that makes more sense to everyone. The producers at Illumination obviously have a different set of priorities: show the fans’ favorite characters, make them look cute, and, to throw red meat to the Gen-Xers and Millennials, insert video-game callbacks to’90s Nintendo characters like Fox McCloud and a deep-cut cameo from ’80s Nintendo accessory (and lame robot) R.O.B.

Also put in lots of baby-voiced characters and little tykes begging for bedtime stories who are literally holding stuffed animals of themselves and each other. Plus, don’t forget lots of lip service to the importance of family. Mario and Luigi are brothers, Peaches and Rosalina are (now) sisters, Bowser literally says “I love my son” and Rosalina apparently is the mother to a shit-ton of goofy little stars. Because it’s a family film, right? Riiiight? Fan service has never been so brazen, or so lazy. To quote SNL’s Tucker Carlson parody, “That’s the rule. That’s the goal now. What are we doing? What’s going on?”