The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Review: Big on Cameos, Light on Story

When animated adaptation The Super Mario Bros. Movie released back in 2023, I went to see it despite not being much of a gamer (and when I do game, I’m a Capcom girlie). After all, why not see what all the big, bright, colorful ruckus was about? That seemed to be most people’s attitude at the time: curiosity about how anyone could possibly fit as big a cultural touchstone as these red and green Italian plumbers into one movie.

Well, the answer came with a big ol’ blockbuster bricksmash as the feature became the first-ever video-game movie to hit over a billion at the box office. I’m sure Universal, Nintendo, and Illumination (the French animation studio behind those lovable yellow Minions) are hoping for another big bag of coins with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But does this star-studded sequel have the juice to hit such a high mark? 

In the short term, yeah. Kids, their parents, and people wearing Mario hats they scored at Universal Studios’ theme parks will probably be in theatre seats on day one. I can’t knock their enthusiasm. There’s enough cameo material in Galaxy’s dainty 98-minute runtime to keep even the most dedicated Ninten-nerd on their toes. And mind you, I’m not even counting the characters with speaking parts. Every other scene has crammed in its multicolor mayhem at least five creatures iconic to anyone who’s ever swung through a GameStop. Piantas, bloopers, and penguins, oh my! I shan’t say more; that’d rob y’all of your joy.

As in the first movie, celebrity voice casting is both a gift and a, well. Not a curse but more of a “Aight.” Chris Pratt does a nice job with his Mario performance, giving Italian without overwhelming the joint. Our boy Glen Powell sells the pants off his Fox McCloud, though the scenes of Keegan-Michael Key’s Toad looking directly at the viewer to say “He is the coolest guy ever” feels like Nintendo weighting the dice for when they finally roll on a new game in the series. (If online leakers are to be believed, which they often are.) My favorite performance and character of the whole feature had to be Yoshi, who gets a ton of verve thrown into every yipped “Yoshi!” from Donald Glover. I’m very much looking forward to the 20-years-later oral history of this franchise where Glover spills on why he took the gig. Perhaps he’s a Yoshi main on Mario Kart?

But you may be wondering why I haven’t dug into the film’s plot, and that’s where my earlier question gets a more conflicted answer. There’s seemingly a lot going on during Galaxy, but little amounts to more than slow-motion fight scenes that carry less weight than a button-smashing sesh. Where Super Mario Bros. attempted depth with a story about chasing a father’s approval, this feature simply retreads the same path with even less effort. Bowser Jr., the new villain voiced by Smashing Machine director Benny Safdie, blows up half the galaxy attempting to impress his pint-sized papa, but their reunion is just one hug and then no more emotional stakes. Any other plot I could describe happening in this film is equally vacuous: Mario’s sort of crushing on Peach; Luigi’s sort of scared; Peach is vaguely curious about her past; and Yoshi is Yoshi, which is honestly fine. There’s no main story here – it’s all side quests.

Ultimately, I think there is little in Galaxy that’ll stick around in the young mind not already planted there years ago by the original Nintendo games. An adaptation is at its best when elevating and accentuating the material it’s pulling from. Nothing in the film I saw elevated, accentuated, or even double-jumped its video-game counterpart. Does that mean your dollars would be better spent getting yourself or your kid the newest Super Mario game – which, at time of publishing, would be the $70 Mario Tennis Fever? That’s up to you, Reader. How much is a Birdo cameo worth in monetary value?

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

2026, PG, 98 min. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. Voices by Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Donald Glover, Brie Larson.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

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