On April 1st, Illumination released the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the highly anticipated sequel to the first Mario film. The film follows Mario and his friends as they try to stop Bowser’s Son, Bowser Jr. However, the film has received some backlash due to claims that it lacks substance, so let’s take a look and see if the Super Mario Galaxy Movie is another fun dive into the Mario universe or a glorified light show.
Firstly, the animation is great. The movie does an amazing job of capturing the world of the Mario franchise. All the characters look true to how they look in the game, and the environments are uniquely beautiful. Sound and music as well do a great job at encapsulating the cartoony Mario world.
Secondly, the voice cast from the first film broke the internet when it was released. People found Chris Pratt as Mario a terrible decision, and it is, and it still sucks. Listen, I like Chris Pratt. He is a talented actor, but he doesn’t really try to put on a voice for Mario. He kind of just talks in his regular voice, which just takes me out of the movie. It makes it even worse that all the other voice actors do a great job encapsulating their characters. That just makes Chris feel even worse. Just like the first film, Jack Black as Bowser and Charlie Day as Luigi were amazing picks for these characters, and I’m glad that we get to see them more in this film. And the newcomers do a great job as well. Donald Glover as Yoshi is so good, in fact, that I thought it was voice clips from the game itself.
And Thirdly Plot, now I list this as no spoiler review however you don’t have to worry cause the film has no plot! What I explained in the intro was that it’s the whole movie, no joke. And personally, I think that’s fine. Mario is a pretty bare-bones franchise, so deep, complex narratives aren’t its strong suit, so if you expect that from the Mario movie, then you are already asking for too much. The film does try to have a small emotional plot point with Bowser and Bowser Jr., however never goes deeper than Bowser wanting to be a good father to his Son but it’s so short that it doesn’t really matter. As much as I’d love to see a Mario movie with a more complex plot, I realize that’s not what the film is; it’s a fun kids movie about an Italian plumber fighting a giant turtle.
Overall, I would describe this movie as a cake with all the icing looks good and is fun, but is nothing deeper.
6/10
