The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is here, and as well as being bereft of creativity, just saying “Well, it’ll make over $1bn like the last one” is not any form of excuse, since that just legitimises a lazy payday… which is basically all Jack Black does, these days.
It opens with Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson – The Marvels) battling a monster controlled by Bowser Jr (Benny Safdie, director of The Smashing Machine), then changes to Mario (Chris Pratt – Mercy) and Luigi (Charlie Day – Honey Don’t) riding on motorbikes in the desert, towards an upside down pyramid, to find dinosaur Yoshi (Donald Glover – Mufasa: The Lion King), his hatching being what happened at the end of the first film’s credits.
Personally, I don’t recall motorbikes in the Mario games I played, nor does this film explain what led to the pair riding towards the pyramid. Plus, they refer to Yoshi as “Yo-shi”, in the same way Americans pronounce “Yo-ghurt”.
Even when Rosalina is captured, she somehow escapes five minutes later, then she and the others are seen heading towards a pink river… Why?
Nothing is explained about the reason why anyone travels to any particular location, so you’re completely in the dark, presumably unless know all the games backwards, and quite frankly, my limit was the flat 2D entries in the series, not the rambling 3D ones.
It was at least explained that when Rosa manages to fly through some stars, that these are the Gateway Galaxy. Still, how does one individual go interstellar without a spacecraft?
And a potential spoiler for one scene…
However, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is just 90 minutes of videogame cutscenes… and then just ends, with some long credits until both the mid- and then post-credit scene (see video below), by which point most people had left, anyway. Yes, you lot can SEE the mid-scene happening while you leave, yet STILL leave. Why the urgent rush?
Along the way, I noted a song reference, when Peach spots something and says, “Whomph! There it is”, before gliding down with a brolly like Mary Poppins. There’s also Pikmin, a R.O.B. roobt and Fox McCloud from the Starfox games, the original Jumpman character, some Minion-style robots, and someone sinking into molten lava like that scene in Terminator 2.
However, with both Fox (Glen Powell – How To Make A Killing) and the Princesses, including Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy – The Gorge) – dominating the proceedings, both Mario and Luigi are fairly redundant in this movie.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is just a lazy series of disconnected scenes, badly edited together. At one point, a spaceship is attacking them. Who is it, and why? What is going on? Why is anything happened? Some plot exposion would’ve helped. I could go and look up the plot description on Wikipedia, but then the film is meant to tell me all of this while I’m watching it. There may be a decent Super Mario film that could be made, but this isn’t it. This is just fan service and old references with nothing else. And why would Mario refer to them both as ‘The Super Mario Brothers’?
Still, from what I could hear in the audience, some kids found it funny.
If you want a great animation, though, check out the Oscar-nominee that wasn’t advertised, and so was barely seen by anyone: Little Amelie. I’m so glad I saw it on the big screen.
Kudos to @WhoPotterVian on Twitter/X for confirming, “Actually, the bikes are a reference to Mario Kart Wii, which was the first game to introduce bikes to the series. Also, Mario and Luigi referred to themselves as the Super Mario brothers in the first film, and it’s well established lore that their surname is Mario. Their names are Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.”
And although Donkey Kong isn’t in this film, there’s a brief moment thrown in – for no apparent reasons, as it connects to nothing – that harks back to the ’80s Donkey Kong dual-screen handheld. And yes, I’m still not over it, but inbetween junior school and senior school, in the summer of 1983, I lent my handheld device to Nicholas Parrikh in my class. I also borrowed one from him, and on the first day in senior school, I handed his back to him, and he did the same, but… he’d broken it. No real apology, and no offer to replace/fix it. That was life back as a kid. What the fuck could you do? No-one else would give a shit.
Anyway, if Nicholas Parrikh is reading this. You’re still a cunt. And I hate you.
Oh, and while I’m on a rant, it was a struggle to get to the Trafford Centre to watch this, since from the usual way in, it was closed!
My complaint to the Trafford Centre, today:
- Although I was aware that supermarkets are closed on Easter Sundays, if ALL shops are going to be closed, and then you’re going to deny access to the top car parks by Selfridges, why is there ZERO indication of this beforehand?
As such, yesterday, I drove in that direction, only to find, like others, that all the car park barriers were down, and we couldn’t get in.
We were diverted into a nearby car park (no.3?), then I followed others up the steps into the car park I would’ve driven into, and walked ALL THE WAY UP TO THE DOORS, before it was left to a cleaner to badly explain that I had to walk all the way round to the food court entrance, quite some distance away.
As I did so, I met others who’d also walked up the stairs and I told them what I’d been told, so we all headed in the same direction, although as we did, we still saw scores of others walking to where we’d just been, so there’s absolutely sod all signage about this.
Reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide line: “It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Ever thought of going into advertising?! And why not have a Twitter account where you can, y’know, tell people about this stuff? What a bloody shambles!
NOTE: There are no mid- not post-credits scenes.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 90 minutes
Release date: March 27th 2026
Studio:
Anime Ltd
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 0/10
Directors: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Producers: Christopher Meledandri, Shigeru Miyamoto
Screenplay: Matthew Fogel
Music: Brian Tyler
Cast:
Mario: Chris Pratt
Luigi: Charlie Day
Princess Peach: Anya Taylor-Joy
Princess Rosalina: Brie Larson
Fox McCloud: Glen Powell
Bowser: Jack Black
Bowser Jr: Benny Safdie
Kamek: Kevin Michael Richardson
Yoshi: Donald Glover
Toad: Keegan-Michael Key
Toad General: Eric Bauza
Ukiki: Roxana Ortega
Wart: Luis Guzmán
Honey Queen: Issa Rae
R.O.B.: Ed Skudder
Lumalee: Juliet Jelenic
Yellow Luma: Virginia Dare Jelenic
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.