Film Review - The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
The long anticipated sequel to the financially successful and critically middling 2023 Super Mario Bros Movie is out now and improves on its predecessor in almost every way. By a little.
Loosely based on the 2007 video game of the same name, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, following the plumber twins’ journey to prevent universal destruction by Bowser’s son. Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) are now joined by series newcomers Yoshi (Donald Glover) and Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), with Fox McCloud (Glenn Powell) making an appearance as well.
This is a lot of characters, not to mention the large array of antagonists present throughout the film, including but not limited to Bowser, Bowser Jr, Honey Queen, Kamek and Wart. With this many characters, and only an hour and a half runtime, it’s unsurprising that the film suffers from significant bloat, with subplots abandoned, characters introduced as supporting cast and then sidelined, and an overall sense of uneven pacing. The story is shafted, and the film instead focuses on providing fan service, turning it into a Nintendo-themed Where’s Wally?.
This decision, surprisingly, works in the films favour. Mario games aren’t known for their deep and insightful plots, and Illumination is very much a child-oriented production studio. By shifting the focus from trying to tell a mediocre story to flashy engaging action set pieces and amusing character interactions, it feels like a more authentic ‘Mario movie’ than its predecessor, making the previous movie feel like a prequel to this, not the other way around. This manner of storytelling also feels truer to the style Illumination pioneered throughout its rich history of kid’s movies such as the Despicable Me entries.
The visuals have taken centre stage in this film, with greater emphasis on dynamic ‘camera’ work, and greater stylisation. Illumination experiments with different visual styles in certain short sequences as well, shifting to 2D anime style animation, to 3D rendered hand puppets, to embracing the original 8-Bit pixel art of the original Super Mario game. You can tell that the film was overall designed to be viewed in 3D, with many figures and objects having emphasised movement between the foreground and background. The sound design and score are also a step up, reimagining tracks from the games in creative ways that aren’t just a slow orchestral cover of the Mario theme in a minor key.
As a movie, it’s enjoyable, but not great. It’s not crippled by nostalgia, but it’s definitely badly bruised by it.
Five space Goombas out of ten.
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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.