The Super Mario Galaxy Movie completely and utterly fails to build on any of the momentum gained by the first movie. While the box office might tell you that this is a successful movie, there is nothing inside this soulless husk of a film, except for my GOAT Yoshi. The movie feels like the third movie of a trilogy despite it only being the second. Failure to build upon the post credit scene from the last film, to focus on something else entirely is just a boring decision.
Despite the film being named Super Mario Galaxy, it pulls more from Nintendo as a whole and other Mario games. The promotion of the film focused on Rosalina, despite the fact that she is only a glorified cameo in the film. She spends 75% of her runtime trapped and doing nothing. Fox from Star Fox is a bigger character in the Mario Galaxy movie than Rosalina. The movie is littered with cameos intended to make the audience excited and in turn ignore the nothingness that happens in the movie.
The movie jumps from scene to scene with no connective tissue other than writers thinking it would be a cool scene to include next. There is a whole dinosaur sequence that adds nothing to the film and is extended for an unfunny joke. The characters are flat with no discerning traits.
The only funny character is Yoshi, but he gets so little screen time despite being teed up to be a major part of this movie. Mario does nothing of note in the film, besides saying and doing things to make people think about the games, which are more enjoyable than whatever this movie is.
I was also hoping for more Luigi in this movie since he was sidelined in the first one, but he also contributes nothing to this movie, other than a couple of slightly funny scenes with Bowser. Peach is cool, but her plotline felt pretty disconnected and irrelevant to the storyline.
There is a casino subplot that seems to set up something bigger for the movie, but also ends up leading nowhere. It is just another scene to shoehorn in more Nintendo characters, to prompt people to say something along the lines of, “hey I know that thing!” It’s so frustrating that after a fun and interesting first movie, most of what made it work has been stripped away in exchange for a boring movie that caters to the lowest common denominator.
Maybe it is my fault for assuming that an Illumination Movie about a video game character would be a good movie, but I am not even asking for a good movie, just a competently made one. Instead, this movie is made for children alone and does not even attempt to tell an interesting story. This is not to say that just because a movie is for children, it cannot have substance. Just do not go into this movie expecting anything other than a completely and utterly lifeless production.
Overall, this movie is a noticeable downgrade in all areas compared to the original. The voice acting is mediocre, and the casting is generally fine besides Chris Pratt as Mario. You know exactly what is going to happen throughout the entire runtime of the film, and nothing interesting or unpredictable occurs, unless you like jingling keys.
It is just frustrating to see a movie that I did not even have that high of hopes for failing to even meet those minimal expectations. Not even watching this with fans of Mario could make this movie an enjoyable experience.
