The Super Mario Bros. Movie wasn’t high cinema by any means, but it was at least grounded with a semblance of plot: we got to see Mario and Luigi grow from humble plumbers to the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom, a classic narrative embellished by crowd-pleasing cameos and references to the video games it was based on, all put together with bright and bouncy animation. For its inevitable sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the filmmakers evidently thought that it could get away with just repeating the references-plus-animation routine without having to bother telling a decent story.
Take for example Yoshi, the plumbers’ iconic dinosaur companion. Mario and Luigi find him in a pyramid after unblocking a pipe; once found, he joins the group and… that’s it really. He’s Yoshi, what more do you want? At the same time, Bowser Jr. emerges from space to rescue his dad from his captivity at the hands of the Mario Bros; on the way he kidnaps space princess Rosalina, and the plumbers have to return to help Princess Peach find and rescue her. (There’s a lot of rescuing going on in this movie.)
This leads them to a journey across space; split into two groups, they visit glittering casinos, prehistoric dinosaur planets, meet up with franchise-building Starfox refugee Fox McCloud and generally have a grand adventure which ends with the successful rescue of the lost princess and the defeat (again) of Bowser. All of this just happens, the characters bopping from one location to another simply because that’s where the script tells them to go next.
The previous Mario movie at least had some gentler character-driven scenes: Mario having to get over his feelings of inferiority and rise to the occasion; Donkey Kong’s need to impress his father and people. There’s none of that here, to the point where Mario and the gang are barely even characters - simply avatars for the screenwriters to move around. Mario himself gets surprisingly little to do, most funny dialogue instead going to Jack Black’s Bowser. Gags are telegraphed in that (increasingly stale) “well that happened” observational style; there’s nothing to appeal to adult audiences, or even to teenagers.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a rote sequel that forgets half of what made the original so good. Young children will be entertained by the bright flashy action sequences, silly jokes and game references, but that’s all there is to it. It’s one of the worst examples of wasted potential in a sequel that I’ve ever seen.
You can read more of my movie reviews on Letterboxd.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026); dir. Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic
Starring Chris Pratt as Mario; Charlie Day as Luigi; Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach; Jack Black as Bowser