The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Movie Review

Yeah, I feel like these Super Mario movies found a cheat code when it comes to film criticism. Because we're talking about a movie, based on a video game franchise that has about as much plot as I do when I go to the bathroom, put out by a studio whose claim to fame is making a bunch of movies with braindead yellow people that run around yelling constantly, and gearing it towards kids primarily. The Mario movies are bulletproof. On top of that, we're talking about one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time that started way back in the 80s. So everybody feasting on these films is going to be bloated 5 minutes in by all the nostalgia berries they ate. And for my family and myself, we got our fill in the first film. Nonsensical plot, check. Nostalgia coming out of the plumber's ass crack, double check. A fast run time with poppy beautiful colors, triple check. You toss in some A-list celebrities like Chris Pratt and Jack Black, you have a sure-fired success. But now we're at the sequel. Everything's larger. Scale is bigger. And the story that previously didn't really matter much because everything was fresh and new, starts to play a larger role now. Because the sheen has worn off. We've had the nostalgia stuff. We got introduced to these new worlds and characters. What else have you got, Illumination? Well, I went out and saw the movie with my family again. I'm gonna tell you exactly what they've got. And I'll tell you in a spoiler-free review. Let's begin. If you find yourself enjoying the commentary, feel free to hop into that subscribe. And that way you can see more of me and I would appreciate it. Alright, so I really built this up, didn't I? I appreciated the first film. It was really nice seeing Mario in this gorgeous looking environment. I thought Illumination did a wonderful job animating everything, designing these characters. It was pretty much everything I wanted growing up. And no, I did not care for the live-action Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Mario Brothers movie. I thought it was terrible. But after seeing Mario Galaxy, it's still terrible. And this new movie is not, but it's also unfortunately not anything great. Illumination here tripled down on everything from the first film. There's some good cameos sprinkled in. You got some good characters from all the games that we loved growing up. And all the famous actors are back voicing their characters again. Chris Pratt, this time around, I thought did a much better job. A little bit more Italian in the voice. I was like, wow, sometimes I'm not hearing him just say, hey, I'm Mario. Let's-a go. I mean, there was actual effort. It sounded better. And that positive is echoed across the board when it comes to the voice acting. Everyone seems to be bringing their A-game here. Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and of course, Jack Black as Bowser. I will say, Jack Black as Bowser did sound different in this one. Maybe it's because you spend a good chunk of this film as small Bowser, where he's got the high-pitched voice. So when he did finally get his real voice back, it was more jarring. I don't know. I haven't seen the original for a little while. So maybe it is one-to-one the same. It just seemed off. Outside of the returning favorites, we have some newcomers. Brie Larson is playing Rosalina. She does a great job in the small role that Rosalina has. All you Rose Stans out there, all you Lena Knights are going to be disappointed that her screen time is very limited. Far less screen time than what Yoshi gets, who's naturally played by Chex Notes, Donald Glover. So random. It's Troy as Yoshi in the morning. That's right, Childish Gambino uses that wicked tongue of his to voice the dinosaur by saying, like four or five different ways and that's it. Yoshi's inclusion is fun at first, until he keeps sticking around for the entire film. Then you're like, what are you doing, dude? You have nothing else going on in your life? Why are you with these guys just suddenly? Which I guess would segue nicely into the plot had I not already talked about Bowser Jr., the main antagonist of the film. His voice is fine. Whenever I saw Bowser Jr. in other games, I always imagined his voice being more nasally than what we have here. I pictured him sounding more young and scrappy. He doesn't sound that young or scrappy and his character is far more serious than I thought he would be. Everyone else in the movie's having a good time goofing off, but you got BJ over here who's all business. But before I get too sidetracked, like this movie does every five minutes, let me focus back on Yoshi. When this character is introduced, you imagine, like any proper narrative, you would get some sort of a backstory followed by a few scenes of interaction where the characters get to know each other, get to understand one another a little. We don't have time for that here. Nothing has time here. It's just, boom, Yoshi's here. Skaboom, we're best friends. Pow, Rosalina's in the film. Skadoosh, there's no time to waste. We're off to save her. Again, I went with my kids. They are older. My son is 13. My daughter's 17. So, you know, they're not the five-year-olds that are going to eat this up. But if you're basing taking a five or six-year-old to a Mario movie on whether or not the review is glowing, I think you're doing it wrong because little kids love everything that's colorful and moving. I mean, the same can be said for a lot of adults, too. But we all came out of this one not mad or upset or anything. We just thought it was kind of just there. It was the most there a movie has been. Colorful hijinks take place. It looks beautiful. It moves very quickly, so quickly that when the end credits come up, you're like, what? What? That's how they ended it? It's done? I don't know who's responsible for how much crap was jammed into this thing, but my God, it is overflowing with ideas, backstories that are not fleshed out at all, and don't even make a lick of sense, which I'll probably do a spoiler review on this because it'll be fun to recap everything that takes place and how absolutely insane it all is. So instead of making a proper narrative, it's just constantly, they're babies now. We're in a montage from a bunch of different video games. We're on B planet. The entire cast from Mario 2 is for some reason in this. Warts and all. Gaging the audience that was with me in this full theater, I would say this wasn't as funny either. I thought the first one was pretty humorous, and there's definitely some jokes here that do land. There's a bunch that don't, but the audience was not really feeling it this time. To the credit of the audience though, it was also very quiet. You could hear a pin drop in this film, and they could have been quiet because they were just confused and their brains were leaking out of their ears because nothing makes sense. You don't really understand how people are showing up where they are, and you don't really care to think about it because again, nothing matters. This is the definitive, nothing's being taken seriously, and we're also not going to challenge the audience in any way whatsoever. So all you're getting is just colorful noise. And speaking of noise, A plus transition, I thought the audio cues in this one, the music, the soundtrack was better. It really was fantastic. I think there was only two mainstream pop culture songs that were used better, and they did not overstay their welcome. But as far as the music accompanying this one, oh my god, you got stuff coming out of the original Mario. You got stuff obviously from Galaxy, Odyssey's in the mix, other gaming properties that I won't say, even though Nintendo went out of their way to ruin it for people. That said, because I'm such a good father, I did not tell my kids about the character that was plastered all over the posters and the recent trailer, so they were actually surprised by someone, and I felt like that was a win. You've probably guessed it, but the story was not good for me here, and I'm harping on it a lot because as I said earlier, the first movie did all the fun nostalgia stuff already, and introduced all these characters and made it look great, so the sequel's job is to push it further and to more interesting places. It just went even more insane with the references. For many, that'll be more than enough, that's all they want, and so I'm here to tell you, you're gonna get that. For me though, I need something more, and obviously so do my kids, so we're just kind of sitting there numb to most of it, going, alright, yeah, that's, that was kind of funny, uh, I don't know what's happening now, everything's blowing up, they're all fine though, they just fell like 8,000 stories, and they're good to go. It's not like I'm looking for Mario to almost be killed in this film, but to get any sort of stakes at all, or any emotion whatsoever would be refreshing. There's no drama, there's no huge laughs, there's no emotional core to this one, and the things they attempt to do are so quickly dusted over, blink, and you'll miss some of them. In fact, very funny, but I got up to go to the bathroom once during this, and so did my daughter at a separate time. I was gone for maybe, maybe a minute, I pee, boom, I'm at the sink, washing the hands, and I'm back. From the time I got up, which I thought was an optimal one based on what was happening, to the time I returned, three different major things happened. I had to turn over and go, how did this get in? And my daughter's like, yeah, they just showed up. I'm like, okay, I mean, we're on a different planet now, there's different villains involved, and the same exact thing happened to my daughter. She left, came back, Mario and Luigi are both babies and they're on a dinosaur planet. She looks at me like, how? And I turn to her, I don't know, they just showed up, the bad guys showed up. I guess this whole thing could have really been summarized in an email. The movie's mid. That's the takeaway, the movie's very mediocre. Which is a shame, because I thought the first one, flaws and all, was a very, very solid start. And I was hoping Illumination would put even a slight amount of effort into the storytelling department in this one, so that way when the parents take their kids out to the movie, kids by the way, the demographic that's always going to be happy with the animated result, they could hopefully get something from it too. Other than just going, hey, little Tina, are you okay? Do you need to take a potty break? Is the dinosaur too scary? Do you need some more popcorn? It's only $45. I'll go get it, this is doing nothing for me. And on top of that, if you haven't played a lot of the Mario games, so much more of this is going to be head-scratchingly weird. And weird can be very good if it's housed inside of an interesting premise. Unfortunately, this one's not. Not terrible by any means, and I really do think it is a lovely looking film, full of some amazing set pieces, some great action here and there, some creative callbacks to the video games, but it is also somehow incredibly empty all the same. And it feels so rushed for some reason, to get out the door. Alright, there you go, my thoughts on the movie. Let me know if you saw it in the comments below. Again, think of subbing to the show, I would appreciate it. And hopefully, I see you next time. Take care. That's the place to do it. Take care.