Illumination’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie is likely their biggest project so far – being a sequel to one of 2023’s highest-grossing films and an adaptation of the beloved video game of the same name.
The film doesn’t necessarily buckle under this pressure – it’s gorgeous animation and detail showcase effort and confidence, but it under-delivers as both an adaptation and a well-rounded film. A revamped movie adaptation of one of gaming’s most iconic franchises was inevitable. Before Illumination’s Super Mario Movie in 2023, the only other feature-length movie featuring our favourite Italian plumbers was the hilariously awful 1993 adaptation starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo (check it out if you fancy a good laugh).
I was initially sceptical when it was announced that Illumination would be the company behind the first instalment, and even more sceptical when the cast was announced. The film was a decent theatrical experience, with seriously dazzling animation and earnest commitment to easter eggs within Mario lore. Despite this, I found it to be an ultimately soulless product, with an awful soundtrack, needle drops, dubious voice acting, and a weak recreation of Nintendo’s magic and whimsy. I left the cinema with a ‘could have been worse’ attitude, but my heart sank a little, realising that this box-office smash would be the start of a ‘Mario cinematic universe’ tirade.
Enter the next instalment – the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Ask the Gen-Z’s in your life, and they’ll likely tell you that the Super Mario Galaxy video game (2007) for the Wii was one of their favourite games growing up. It was a beautifully fantastical journey, featuring trademark Nintendo adventure platforming excellence, and an emotionally resonant story to boot. Considering my thoughts on the previous film, my expectations were low, but a small part of me was at least just excited to see some of Galaxy’s iconography on the big screen.
And you do get that – sort of. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie adapts elements of numerous contemporary Mario games to tell its story. Rosalina, whose family of stars (Lumas) are captured by Bowser Jr, enlists our favourite Italian plumbers and co to not only save the mushroom kingdom, but the whole galaxy. New characters are introduced – the aforementioned Rosalina, a celestial princess who is the heart of the original game, as well as Yoshi, an adorable small green dinosaur, who you’ve likely seen play tennis or crush a race course in a number of Mario games. Bowser Jr is this film’s antagonist – the son of Bowser, who has since been captured by the Mario Bros.
Our heroes travel from setting to setting at breakneck speed, fighting all sorts of foes on their way. For the most part, this film is an animated action film, and to its credit, a decent one. The action scenes are visually exciting and well-structured. These sequences also showcase the film’s biggest asset – the animation. I was pretty impressed with the first film’s visual quality, but this one is on another level. Environments fans will recognise are realised with flair without being too messy, and there is colour and depth galore. All characters are visually well adapted – they’re mostly true to the 3D models people will be familiar with in the games, but with some extra detail for the big screen.
Another successful point of adaptation is the music. One of my biggest eye-roll moments in the first instalment was the use of popular music needle-drops, often in place of an actual score – a completely bizarre decision considering the wealth of amazing Mario music to choose from. Galaxy makes use of this catalogue – Brian Tyler returns as composer but is given full rein to plunder music from all across the Mario series.
Unfortunately for me, this was where the improvements ended. The voice acting was somehow worse than average this time around – I was frequently taken out of the plot due to the completely uninspired performances that really just sounded like rattling off a script. Chris Pratt was the worst offender in this regard, but most of the cast had a similar approach. Jack Black wasn’t nearly as well utilised as in the first film, and the two princesses performed by Anya Taylor-Joy and Brie Larson were serviceable. As much as I love comedians Charlie Day and Keegan-Michael Key, their strained performances were neither funny or natural.
The plot borrowed the tiniest amount from the game and fills in the gaps with generic film nothingness. There are hints of tension between characters that go nowhere, and there are really no character arcs for anyone at all. I think this is the film’s biggest disappointment – it’s just not really a Mario Galaxy film at all. It features a few characters and settings from the game, but also lots of other titles, like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Sunshine. It just crams in iconic content from the franchise at large, with no focus on recreating what makes the Galaxy game unique. It is such wasted potential for fans, and also just results in an empty feeling film for non-fans too. There’s little dimension to each of the characters, so none feel like an extension of their video game selves.
Whilst being a serious achievement of exciting and gorgeous animation, the Super Mario Galaxy Movie is really just an hour and a half of Mario-themed spectacle. At the end of the day, this film is certainly angled towards kids, but I still can’t help feeling disappointed as a moviegoer and a Mario fan. Hopefully, in later instalments in the ‘Mario cinematic universe’, Illumination can balance their clear talents in animation with decent enough storytelling.
Author: Elliot, Holborn Store
