In “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”, we meet Yoshi, a cute green dinosaur in pink shoes who looks like a plastic bath toy and can eat almost anything (he is voiced by Donald Glover in an infantile coo). We also meet an army of Lumas, cute-adorable rainbow stars in designer colors who are cousins ​​to Lumali from “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” — but Lumali had a weird Debbie Downer vibe, while the new ones are just generic Glowstick mascots that yell “Mama!” They say. The mama they’re referring to is Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), the Lumas’ adoptive mother (how did this happen? Why ask why?), who is the sister of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). In the opening scene, Rosalina is abducted by a giant shape-shifting droid who takes her to outer space, where the entire movie takes place – and I mean it’s really set in space, as it never settles on a planet or anywhere else, which is enough to give you a satisfying sense of locality.
That droid is being controlled by Bowser Jr., who’s like a smaller plush version of his father – and who comes across as a kiddie Wallace Shawn Pipsqueak dictator, voiced by Benny Safdie. Sure, he’s got daddy issues, but he’ll work them out because Bowser (Jack Black) hasn’t gone away. He’s still very young (this is when he was scolded at the end of the first movie), and now he’s been punished to the point where he actually becomes our heroes’ friend for a while and never sings a song (That’s right – there is no sequel to “Peaches” in this movie). Then Bowser grows up again and is reunited with his son, and the two agree to rule the universe together (or something), but somehow the two Bowsers connect less than one Bowser.
I should mention that the film also features the grumpy Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and his fellow inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom, as well as the Honey Queen (Issa Rae), who rules over the Honeyhive Galaxy, and the Wart (Luis Guzman), who might also be called the Frog King, the artesania-decorated inhabitants of a Mexican village in the Red Desert, as well as a giant bee, Rob the Robot. (who has an awkward moment when he gets stuck saying the letters “rrrrrrrrrr…”), a full-on T. rex and a giant purple dragon, as well as Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), a daring pilot who rockets across the globe like Han Solo from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies.
Did I mention that Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), those brave mustachioed Brooklyn plumbers, are in “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”? They certainly are, although they often feel like an afterthought. They’re exploring their own galaxy, trying to stop Bowser, and helping Princess Peach rescue her captive sister. There is a mutual crush going on between her and Mario, but this is also an afterthought, as the film’s story does not involve romance. Nothing really. Not a single one of these characters, including Mario and Luigi, is central to “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” And that’s because the film has no center.
The movie keeps throwing things at you. It’s an orgy of video-game Easter eggs, but while it’s all clearly designed to attract young gamers, I don’t mean that the film replicates the experience of playing one of the Super Mario Bros. games. The first film really worked – and at the same time, managed to be a miraculously entertaining transformational story for kids and adults alike. It was one of the best animated films in years.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is one of the worst. It features the same directors, Aaron Horvath and Michael Zelenik, and the same screenwriter, Matthew Fogel, but despite the glitter of fantasy glitz, it feels as if these talented actors have been stripped of their bodies. It feels like the Nintendo suits have taken over this time. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is full of running, jumping, chasing, falling through the air, falling into lava, fighting and more fighting scenes, but nothing in the movie holds up. It’s a crazy mess, a curious product-tie-in mess. This is one of the only animated features I’ve seen since the “Pokemon” movies that appears to be wearing its own Easter eggs on the outside.
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” Was A centerpiece, and a great one, in the presence of Bowser, played by Jack Black as a villainous supervillain who was also a debauched romantic. The entire story of the film was based on his love for Princess Peach, and Black’s vocal performance was a captivating web of monomania and insecurity. I realize the filmmakers didn’t want to simply repeat what they did the first time. But they should have been bigger. And the fact that Black never got the chance to sing is disappointing to many Galaxy fans. Instead, both Bowsers seem harmless: just another double cog in the movie’s machinery of eye candy in all directions.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is manic in such an impersonal way that it feels like putting the entire movie on Ritalin. Yet it may well be that as a commercial enterprise, this greater-than-Easter-egg hunt of a movie will clean up exactly as it’s designed. The film presents its story as a cliched adventure, which is merely a lame tale because it focuses on those small aspects of identity for gamers. And this is quite disappointing. After decades of terrible video-game movies, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and, last year, “A Minecraft Movie” were proof that big-screen adaptations of games could be wild — and, in a fantastical way, classical — fun. Let’s hope “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t herald a return to the days of video-game movies full of spectacular, over-the-top chaos.
