“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” brings to mind the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
On that note, I invite you to consider that “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” has a lot of things going for it. It is very pretty, it is very respectful of the characters and their universe and it will almost certainly make another billion dollars. All of these things are, I believe, quite true. But none of these things prevent it from also being terrible.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is, like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” before it, adapted from a series of Nintendo video games, old and new, and like many feature-length advertisements disguising themselves as movies, it is superficially appealing. The world of the Mario Brothers has been fine-tuned, in one game after another, into an impossibly colorful, friendly, iconic world with appealing designs, memorable music and pleasing sound effects. Simply visiting the world of Super Mario is enough, at least momentarily, to bring a smile to one’s face.
So yes, this movie is very pretty. But we don’t need pretty. We already have pretty. We can access the world of “Super Mario” whenever we want, through games and cartoons and action figures. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” has the word “movie” in the title, and that’s where it wets the bed. It’s a cinematic adaptation and it is entirely concerned with showing us things we’ve already seen, with as little drama or comedy or suspense or innovation as possible.
This movie isn’t faithful, it’s terrified. Any deviation from the established norm, any iota of imagination, anything actually cinematic has been carefully removed from “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” as though creativity and artfulness were an infestation of ticks.
It doesn’t really have a plot, it has a set-up and it just keeps going. Suffice it to say that at the end of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” the world was saved, and the villainous Bowser (Jack Black) was shrunk down and imprisoned. An indeterminate amount of time has passed, and now Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) has come to rescue his dad. He’s also kidnapped Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), who lives in outer space, and whose magic can power his “Boomsday” weapon, which is basically the Death Star if the Empire never pointed it at anything. If you’re looking for stakes, or any form of suspense, this is not the movie for you.
Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) runs off to save Princess Rosalina. Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are supposed to stay behind and take care of the Mushroom Kingdom, but within minutes they’re following Peach, because nothing that happens in this movie matters. The whole premise of protecting the Mushroom Kingdom is just a contrived way to separate the heroes so they have to find each other a few minutes later.
Mario and Luigi also team up with Bowser, who claims to be reformed, but instead has a reverse character arc in which he gradually reverts back to his status quo. And thank goodness, because there was almost an idea for a few minutes, and we wouldn’t want any of that. Nobody else in “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” has any character development of any kind. They’re completely stagnant throughout the movie, unmotivated and unmoved, and resistant to any interpersonal conflict that might make them interesting.
Even Fox McCloud (of “Star Fox” fame, voiced by Glen Powell), who basically just plays Han Solo, is tame. He can’t be cocky, he can’t compete for Peach’s affections, he can’t have a story arc of his own. He, like all the other heroes, is objectively perfect and has nothing to do except move from one scene to the other, looking cool and referencing various video games.
And then of course there’s Yoshi (Donald Glover), who was teased at the end of the previous movie. You might think he’d have something to do, or add something to the ensemble dynamic, but you would be wildly overestimating this film. They find Yoshi at the beginning of the movie and they accept him immediately, and then he’s just there. Yoshi isn’t a character, and he isn’t part of the story. He even meets a larger dinosaur and has no reaction. You might think as the only dinosaur in this universe he would have been happy, or at least a little surprised, to see a T. Rex but no, that would be storytelling, and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t do that kind of thing.
The screenplay for “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is so lacking in substance and purpose that after a while you can’t even hear the dialogue over the incessant sound of Aristotle’s ghost punching himself. This is — to quote that other great American thinker, Homer Simpson — “just a bunch of stuff that happened.” The video games are more engaging because they challenge the audience and, by extension, the heroes. There’s a greater sense of peril in “Mario Teaches Typing” than in “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” because in “Mario Teaches Typing” there’s a chance something might go wrong. This movie is so safe, even for children’s entertainment, that it should be kept in the heavily fortified back of a bank, not in a theater near you.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is for children. Nobody thinks otherwise, so if anyone was already typing “What did you expect, ‘Citizen Kane?’” then I can stop you right there. Children can enjoy slop — I should know, I grew up on dreck like “The Care Bears Movie” and “GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords” — but that doesn’t mean kids wouldn’t also appreciate a proper meal. Nobody complains when a kids movie is great. When a kids movie has interesting characters and an involving plot and a theme worth exploring, nobody says the makers of “KPop Demon Hunters” screwed up and should have made it worse. We know kids like good movies. So making them bad is a choice, not a necessity.
Besides, those kids who don’t care if “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is good or not? They’re probably not reading reviews in the trades. So let’s talk like grown-ups.
A movie like this will probably make a lot of money, because it doesn’t rock the boat. But a boat that never rocks is a boat that never goes anywhere. That’s how boats work. They’re supposed to take you on a journey. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t take you anywhere you haven’t been before, and it’s not as fun, it’s not as exciting, and it’s not as challenging as literally any of the games it’s based on. This is not an adaptation of the Super Mario Bros., it’s just a reminder that the franchise exists. And although it’s technically a moving picture, nothing about this movie will move you.
