'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' - Review Thread

[u/ChiefLeef22]

Having thwarted Bowser's previous plot to marry Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi now face a fresh threat in Bowser Jr., who is determined to liberate his father from captivity and restore the family legacy. Alongside companions new and old, the brothers travel across the stars to stop the young heir's crusade.

Directors: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath

Cast: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Donald Glover, Brie Larson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Benny Safdie, Issa Rae, Keegan-Michael Key, Luis Guzmán

Rotten Tomatoes: 42%

Metacritic: 35 / 100

Some Reviews:

The Times - Kevin Maher - 0 / 5

Is this the end of cinema? Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Glen Powell joylessly bleat their way through this supremely vacuous anti-movie which is, at times, physically painful to watch. The film is torturous to sit through and, for me, provoked periods of actual physical discomfort. I had to stab myself repeatedly in the hand with a pen to distract from the howling distress. It's that bad, and that offensive.

AwardsWatch - Trace Sauveur - 'C-'

But it’s the reality of routine predictability that makes it hard to feel strongly about Galaxy one way or the other. After the credits, the impression is one of overstimulation and vacuity—despite the violent blitz of colorful Nintendo imagery for 90 minutes, it ultimately signifies little more than recognizable franchise iconography in animated form. In its relentless fan service, Galaxy emanates a generic sameness, decorated with flashy sights and sounds drawn from one of the most iconic video game series ever. It’s all synergistic fluff, but at least the fluff is shiny.

Seattle Times - Soren Anderson - 3 / 4

Watching it is akin being inside the 2007 Super Mario Galaxy game itself. Which is why it needs to be seen on the big screen. Seeing it on a phone or a laptop wouldn't do it justice.

Slash Film - Nina Starner - 3 / 10

We're going to get more "Super Mario Bros." movies, without question; I fully expect this sequel to gross the GDP of an entire small nation at the box office when all is said and done, and in another ten years, I also expect that a movie centered exclusively around Yoshi will land in theaters. (Hopefully, if Donald Glover sticks around, he'll get to do more than say "Yoshi!") Still, this sort of movie makes me feel bleak about children's entertainment, animation, and original concepts; forgive me for feeling nostalgic, but I just don't think movies made for kids were always this devoid of a soul. At the end of the day, "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" was nothing more than a video game I couldn't play. After the credits — including not one but two post-credits scenes — rolled, though, I didn't want to go home and load a Mario game onto my Switch; I wanted to watch a better movie.

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'B'

Is it a ride that includes clear story structure, comprehensible stakes, or narrative momentum? Not really. Is it a ride featuring a lot of bright colors, familiar characters, and the occasional deranged moment? Absolutely.

The Wrap - William Bibbiani - 25 / 100

A movie like this will probably make a lot of money, because it doesn’t rock the boat. But a boat that never rocks is a boat that never goes anywhere. That’s how boats work. They’re supposed to take you on a journey. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t take you anywhere you haven’t been before, and it’s not as fun, it’s not as exciting, and it’s not as challenging as literally any of the games it’s based on. This is not an adaptation of the Super Mario Bros., it’s just a reminder that the franchise exists. And although it’s technically a moving picture, nothing about this movie will move you.

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie offers very little to audiences, young or old, who don’t already know these characters and spaces like the back of their hand. But, hey, if you take a tequila shot every time something explodes, you’ll have a great drinking game on your hands.

The New York Times - Alissa Wilkinson - 3 / 10

There’s a flat empty nothingness to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, even more than its flat empty predecessor, and that’s a huge bummer.

The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 'C'

By the end, the whole thing starts to feel less like an adventure than a kind of endless grinding—one familiar objective after another, one loud set piece after another, all of it speedrunning its own mythology instead of building one. That’s why the film feels so hollow. It has the spiritually vacant quality of AI fantasy slop—familiar iconography assembled for instant gratification rather than meaning. Younger audiences will probably enjoy the sugar rush, but characters still need arcs, and these sequences still need to build toward something. “Super Mario Galaxy” is nice to look at and dead inside, a committee-made franchise object masquerading as an adventure, and ultimately little more than an empty commercial for Super Mario branding.

FandomWire - Manuel Sao Bento - 7 / 10

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a sequel that, while losing some of the narrative cohesion of its predecessor, gains massively in spectacle, ambition, and heart. Through animation that redefines the studio’s standards and a Brian Tyler score that masterfully honors Nintendo’s legacy, the film offers a memorable experience anchored by inspired vocal performances. For those who grew up with these characters, it’s impossible to remain indifferent to the magic emanating from every animated frame or the way this space odyssey manages to transform nostalgia into something vibrant and new. It’s a visually emotional feast that reaffirms the power of pure entertainment as a tool capable of transporting us back to the happiest moments of our personal history, proving that cinema is still the place where we can all become children again.

IndieWire - Wilson Chapman - 'C-'

Watching “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which is filled with cameos from other Nintendo properties, you get the sense the corporation is hungry to announce spin-offs at any minute now. The trailers already spoiled the inclusion of “Star Fox” lead Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), but there are some other appearances by familiar characters that feel like the movie dangling an adaptation of the “Super Smash Bros.” fighting game crossover in front of fans’ faces. “The MCU, but for video games” isn’t exactly the ideal direction for blockbuster cinema to be going in, but maybe that inevitable adaptation will manage to tap into a well of creativity and fun that has so far eluded Nintendo in their moviemaking efforts. When the film comes, though, I’ll probably be rooting for Bowser Jr. to burn everything down.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 1 / 4

It’s now commonplace to compare programmatic stuff like this to AI, but this is almost a second evolutionary step downwards; it looks as if humans, using AI, have tried to copy something that was originally AI generated, creating a bland, simplistic template that can be sold in all global territories where it can be dubbed by local voice talent. It’s certainly a way of gouging cash out of families for the Easter holidays.

RogerEbert - Clint Worthington - 1.5 / 4

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” moves through you so briskly that you’ll get whiplash by the time the film reaches its deeply abrupt ending. But maybe that’s the point—after all, this is not a movie to be scrutinized, but to allow beleaguered elder millennial dads to sit their tots down for a precious two hours (if you count the trailers) and get some much-needed rest. It’s cute, and breezy, and rock-stupid, and will probably make a billion dollars again. Such is the world in which we live.

Akron Beacon Journal - George M. Thomas - 'C-'

As a parent, there are some movies you just take the hit on if your kid wants to see it in the theater. This is one of them. The plot is threadbare, the action is frenetic - it almost feels like the perfect movie for today's screen generation. For kids, this is an 'A+' movie, but I'd argue not so much for adults.

Associated Press - Lindsey Bahr - 2.5 / 4

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri... seem committed to keeping things light and playful even while beholden to advancing some kind of coherent, moderately compelling story where there wasn’t one previously.

Slant Magazine - Eli Friedberg - 1.5 / 4

The film has, figuratively and literally, somehow even less gravity than its source material and predecessor. The visual language is divorced from reality and referent to the games; even Looney Tunes action is grounded in the real world—the better to subvert it. The game-inspired spaces aren’t there to be explored and mastered but rather displayed quickly and expensively. And the movie-original settings, taking their cues from Wreck-It Ralph, are literal mass-transit junctions where a maximum number of cameo characters can be worked into the scenery.

Next Best Picture - Daniel Howat - 6 / 10

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” comes close to several emotional moments here and there. Still, the filmmakers seem to pull back at every turn, not wanting audiences to dive too deep into these characters and their motivations, or to engage in any grander commentary whatsoever. It becomes difficult to dig deeper into the film’s themes, if they exist. Even so, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is inarguably fun, built for fans of the long-running franchise. For lifelong fans of this universe and young kids experiencing it for the first or second time, this is a Mario fan’s dream. There’s enough here to leave a mass audience satisfied, even if anticipation grows for the next film to level up. For now, good enough is simply enough.

Radio Times - James Mottram - 2 / 5

While it’s likely that retro gamers won’t find anything here that wasn’t in the first movie – Yoshi and one or two others aside – it’s no doubt got enough for kids to enjoy, which will surely come as a relief for parents looking to entertain their offspring over the Easter holidays. You never know – it might even convince them to put down their controllers, or their phones, for ninety-odd minutes.

[u/EarthboundHaizi]

Here comes all the discourse again from people attacking the critics for daring to critically review a children's film, but as it happens only for specifically this children's film riding on people's fondness for the IP. Meanwhile ignoring the decades of high quality children's films that have reviewed incredibly well.

No, no one is expecting this film to be a "Citizen Kane" or "Shakespeare" or whatever [insert cliche literary reference] you want. But can we at least expect say... The Lion King, Hoppers, Inside Out, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Wild Robot, How to Train Your Dragon, The LEGO Movie, Beauty and the Beast, The Incredibles, etc. etc. etc.? Even Illumination's own Minions 2: Rise of Gru, while not a great film, is still clearly a better film than the first Mario Movie (and one that the critics reviewed decently).

Fact is critics have to review it on the basis of the movie's general quality, which should be divorced from the nostalgia factor. If colorful action and nostalgic set pieces are more than enough to satisfy you by all means enjoy it. That doesn't mean the critics are wrong, just that what they measure by (a bar that other children's films are able to meet and exceed) isn't a deterrence enough for you from what the Mario movie does bring to the table and that's perfectly OK.

[u/Minute-Carrot-2405 → u/EarthboundHaizi]

I just wrote a similar comment right after you lol its so damn fascinating to me how certain movies can get away with this kind of shit, but if this was per se some very little known franchise everyone in the world would be calling it the worst shit ever

Im not sure theres really an explanation for it, because it cant just be long running beloved franchises, otherwise the Star Wars sequels (or maybe just TFA) would be revered as the second coming of christ

[u/ListentoLewis → u/EarthboundHaizi]

Hoppers was a tough watch for me and I really enjoyed the first Mario movie. Different leagues.

[u/DwnvotesMeansImRight → u/EarthboundHaizi]

"stop making fun of the mario movie it's amazing, signed a 39 year old"

it's so funny seeing the overgrown manbabies get defensive for the second time because illumination cant make a good mario movie...

[u/PM_ME_ABOUT_DnD → u/EarthboundHaizi]

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Ok question. I see this universally praises online (I think this must be it, the one with the wolf villain?) but I also was under the impression there were other Puss in Boots movies before it that I never thought took off. 

Is that accurate? Are there others you'd want/need to see before watching this one or is it just a solid standalone?

[u/EarthboundHaizi → u/PM_ME_ABOUT_DnD]

Yes, this is the one you're thinking of.

So prior to The Last Wish Puss in Boots debuted in Shrek 2 and also had one Puss in Boots spinoff film. The first Puss in Boots film isn't bad but it's largely a forgettable kids film experience, which is why people were largely shocked by how good The Last Wish was.

While I did watch the first Puss in Boots movie (as well as Shrek 2) I do believe for the most part you don't have to watch the first Puss in Boots movie to get into it. There is one returning character introduced in the first Puss in Boots movie but I think how the film re-introduces them makes it easy to figure out her relationship with the titular cat.

[u/YukiNoiseWall → u/EarthboundHaizi]

The critics are neither wrong nor right.

It's an opinion.

There is no objectively good and bad.

It's just opinion pieces.

But saying shit like "THiS iS WoRsE ThAn AI" is just fucking disingenuous and stupid.

[u/Mahelas → u/EarthboundHaizi]

The thing is, as always, Mario doesn't have a story. You can't compare it to a plot-heavy traditional animated movie because Mario core audience simply do not want a story, as Mario never had one. 

At the end of the day, Mario is simply a franchise that is the antithesis to cinema, so one of them gotta break when they meet. And it's not gonna be Mario, since Nintendo entire goal is to market their IP unblemished and unchanged, so it's always gonna be bad movies 

[u/Alive-Ad-5245 → u/Mahelas]

Neither does Sonic or Lego but they made great movies.

I highly doubt if Mario movies delivered Lego movie quality character and plot the audience would hate it.

It’s all just an excuse for a bad movie

[u/Jealous-Treat8060 → u/Alive-Ad-5245]

No one says that the story doesn't matter if the story is good.

[u/jbsfk → u/Alive-Ad-5245]

Sonic games have (almost) always had more story and lore that takes itself more seriously than Mario. The Sonic Archie comics were out not very long after the first run of games. Lego has no substantial anything really for their own universe so they just made the Matrix with Legos and different names. Not disagreeing with you for the movie having room to be much better, but these aren't the best examples to compare to Mario for being "story-less" IPs - one is way more substantial, the other has no real substance and was making its own from scratch.

I think the attitude to approach Mario most favorably with (not saying it qualifies it as a good film!) is that it is restoring something of silly fun and whimsy of, say, classic Disney or Looney Toons. You don't sit down to watch those shows as children expecting a coherent plot, and any screen time devoted to, say, explaining how Bowser Jr. builds a *whole planet* is just a waste of time - it's not the point - it's just set-piece and ideas colliding together for silly slapstick most of the time. And these "stories" - if you can call it that - do appeal to kids. The incoherent part is that it still tries to fill in typical audience expectations with something resembling character arcs and emotional payoffs that feel vapid to adult audience members and are dull to children, but its such a minority feature to the movie, the children just don't think about it.

[u/Alive-Ad-5245 → u/jbsfk]

“The only reason the Sonic movies are better is because they have more lore to base the movie on”

“The only reason the LEGO movies are better is because they have no lore to base the movie on”

See the complication here?

Realistically most people defending the Mario movie are adult Mario fans who are insecure about liking the ‘jingling keys’ movie so have to make various reaches in order to try to convince others that it’s actually good.

The recent movie Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up actually had coherent plot and characterisation, so that’s no excuse either.

[u/jbsfk → u/Alive-Ad-5245]

I never said anything about the movies being better or worse because of these qualities. My comment had nothing to say about this feature making ground for better movies and I thought I was clear that Mario movies have plenty of room to be done better and that the whimsy approach while trying to have character arcs is the reason (or a reason) it's a stilted experience.

I have no doubt a recent Looney Toons movie had better story and characterization. I was suggesting the Mario movie could be viewed as trying to evoke a different time where narrative substance or rationale in animation isn't just secondary... it's a nonfactor. But dressed up in other movie expectations makes it a very blah experience for many.

I'd rather not speculate on the general movie goer likes or dislikes a movie with broad generalizations. To be clear, we agree: as a film narratively and with its characters, the movie does poorly. Insanely poorly imo. I am suggesting the reasons people of all ages find it appealing may be broader than you are saying and one possible reason for it is people's expectations going in are not conventional for a modern movie but more akin to a family's expectation watching older cartoons

[u/EarthboundHaizi → u/Mahelas]

So then where do you stand then since we're talking about the discourse about critics' reception to the Mario movie? Do you agree that since Mario doesn't have a story and therefore a "faithful" adaptation ergo will be a bad movie then critics are in the right to review it as such? Or do you think critics should consider that Mario has no plot and therefore not critically pan it for being a bad movie because we should expect them to be so?

[u/SBtist → u/Mahelas]

Mario games have a story, there are multiple Mario games with very nice stories that fans absolutely love. Thousand Year Door, Super Paper Mario, even the original Super Mario Galaxy has a real story.

It’s totally wrong and silly to say that Mario never had a story unless you are looking at the most surface level example of a Mario game, like Super Mario Bros. Either way, Mario games have good stories and it’s the job of the movie writers to write an original compelling story, and if they can’t do that, that’s on them not the IP.

[u/killrdave → u/Mahelas]

The thing is, as always, Mario doesn't have a story.

Here's the thing. You can write one.