By Nick Nitkowski

After the success of the first “Super Mario Bros. Movie” reaching over $1 billion worldwide, a sequel was bound to happen. The first movie was released in 2023 that was praised by fans of the IP but was met with mixed reviews from critics. And now here we are with the sequel “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” a mere three years later. It’s natural for studios to want to get another movie of a successful franchise out as soon as possible, but in going too fast, some important elements can end up being sacrificed in the process. We all remember how “Frozen II” ended up. But now that we have it, will it be a success like the first one, or has this franchise already lost its power-up?

While the trailers were a little vague on the details of this sequel, a practice that is very unlike Illumination Studios who tend to release more trailers than necessary to sell a movie, the overall plot of this sequel is pretty simple. After putting Bowser confined in a small space, Mario and his brother Luigi go around helping those in need with various problems, but when Bowser Jr. crashes the party in order to free his father to destroy the galaxy, it’s once again up to Mario and Luigi to stop them and with the help of both old and new friends, they could save more than just the Mushroom Kingdom.

While I know that the first animated Super Mario Bros. movie wasn’t well received by critics, and I still managed to enjoy it. The sequel, however, is not as good as the first, in my personal opinion. It heavily caters to the fans of the IP in multiple ways. Some may see this as a positive, and they would be right to do so, but others could also see this as a negative, and they too would be right to do so. The problem is that the movie tries to do too much while at the same time not doing enough. What I mean by this is that the movie is all spectacle and has no substance. There’s no real story, plot, or emotional weight to anything in this film. It’s nothing more than a bushel of member-berries for fans who played the game.

The animation is up to par with the previous film with just as many bright colors to distract and mesmerize the children wanting to see it. Although, I will say that the characters tend to look a little too bouncy or rubbery even without the power-ups when they move or interact with things. Even their faces tend to move and bend a little unnaturally. The larger characters don’t appear to have much weight when they move, especially Bowser. This was a complaint that I had with the first movie as well, and it hasn’t improved at all in this one. I guess that’s just the permanent style for this franchise.

Now I’d be lying if I said that the movie didn’t have its moments. There were plenty of things that I enjoyed seeing. There were even a few jokes that made me laugh. But for me, those moments were few and far between. The issue that Illumination constantly faces with their films including this one is the fact that they already reach the cusp of something great like a great story element that could really elevate the film, but instead they drop the ball on it. This is why most of their movies have a range of average to below average ratings from critics. So long as children are entertained, why put in effort into the story?

Of course, you have the original cast from the first film reprising their roles. Chris Pratt is back as Mario, Charlie Day is Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy is Princess Peach, Jack Black is Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key is Toad, and Donkey Kong is nowhere to be found in this film. Not sure why. But among the original cast, we have some new voice talent joining the cast such as Brie Larson as Princess Rosalina, Donald Glover as Yoshi for some reason, and Benny Safdie as Bowser Jr. And if that name sounds familiar, he is one of the Safdie Brothers that directed movies like “Good Times”, “Uncut Gems”, and his recent solo outing with “Smashing Machine”. Needless to say, I was very surprised to see his name on the voice cast list. There are no stand out performances with any of the cast in this movie in my opinion, but they work with what they’re given. I don’t think anyone is going to walk away praising the voice acting here.

Now, the studio did something very questionable for a lot of fans. It involves a character reveal that no one knew about until they decided to release a character poster of him just days before the movie’s release. If you were lucky enough to avoid this information, please skip to the next paragraph as I’m about to talk about it here. So, for some reason that I do not understand, they decided to reveal that a very popular character from one of Nintendo’s other IPs was going to be in the movie and that character is none other than Fox McCloud of Starfox fame voiced by Glen Powell. As someone who has played Starfox 64 back in the day, this is a major reveal that would have greatly benefited being kept a surprise for fans to discover when watching the movie. I did find out that a lot of my colleagues in attendance for the screening weren’t gamers and had no idea who the character was so knowing this was inconsequential for them, but for fans, it’s the equivalent of releasing a poster of Captain America wielding Thor’s hammer just days before “Endgame” releases.

Overall, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” throws every single shiny thing and nostalgic element it possibly can at the screen, hoping that it’s enough to stick together to make a movie. I’m certain that there will be people that will enjoy that, but I believe a movie needs more than that, otherwise it’s just the Super Mario Showcase Movie that has nothing more to say other than “Remember this thing? Remember that thing? It’s on the big screen now! Isn’t this fun? Now look at this thing from that other thing that you remember! We got that, too! So much fun,“Remember this thing? Remember that thing? It’s on the big screen now! Isn’t this fun? Now look at this thing from that other thing that you remember! We got that, too! So much fun, right?!” There is no doubt in my mind that the right audience will have fun with this movie, but without the fundamental elements of storytelling present, it’s just another sequel that falls victim to all style and no substance. We all thought that this question block would contain the Super Star, but instead, we got the Blue Mushroom.

2 stars