Shiny colours, a million miles per hour pacing and unwarranted fan service — The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a mess writes Carter Smith
The average time it takes someone to decide whether they want to watch a TikTok is within the first 0.001 to 0.03 seconds of seeing the video. It’s a worrying fact, and one which The Super Mario Galaxy Movie creators must have referred to when making this film. It’s not intended to be a spectacle on the big screen, but a movie which will keep people searching for part 15 while having a doomscroll at night.
It’s a simple plot. Following the events of the first, Bowser’s obnoxious son Bowser Jr (Benny Safdie) is out for revenge on the Brooklyn plumbers who bested his dad. He nabs Princess Rosalina (A criminally underused Brie Larson) leading both Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) as well as Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day) and newcomer Yoshi (A unnecessarily great Donald Glover) go on their separate journeys to put an end to his dastardly plans.
Nothing extravagant, but a more than serviceable script for a kids film. Where it falls apart is in the presentation of this simple premise.
Though it’s not as bad as people say it is — it’s not quite worse than AI or worthy of jabbing a pen in your hand for relief like some reviews have said — this is merely nothing more than an abnormally fast paced key jingling exercise for Nintendo.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This can work. I’d be lying if I wasn’t smiling when there was reference to the games or Nintendo’s stacked catalogue of characters (Fox McCloud was a high point). But once the smile fades away after a few seconds, what are you left with?
I’m not sure that the creators knew the answer to that question. That could be the only explanation for the million miles an hour pace this film is going at for the 98 minute run time.
Oh look! It’s a reference to the game; over there, action scenes with exploding colours; don’t forget about these other references. Rinse and repeat this for the 98 minute run time and you have The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
I understand it’s a kids film, I’m hardly expecting in-depth and emotional breakdown, but even a smidge of reflection or attempt at emotion wouldn’t go amiss. It is outstanding the lack of trust this film has in the audience and kids in general. It’s almost as if they think if they slow the film down for longer than a minute kids are going to be bored and stop watching.
It’s strange considering the first films at least tried to have quiet and emotional moments — Mario’s scene with Donkey Kong — but not here. Don’t you remember there have been countless Mario games? Focus on that instead.
We are already fighting a war to make sure kids have some resemblance of attention span and not being turned into dopamine addicts. The films they watch should be helping in that fight, not directly contributing to the other side.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is painfully fine in moments and tedious in others. Any resemblance of something good is few and far between. The poor attempt at a story is squandered by excessive product placement. It’s not quite game over for this series, but it’s on its last life.
- The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is available to purchase on various streaming platforms
