Video game movies seem to be a hot commodity in Hollywood these days, with so many games being translated to the big and small screen, from HBO’S The Last of Us adaptation, Tom Holland starring in Uncharted, to the now trilogy of Sonic the Hedgehog movies. With the clear downtrend in the superhero genre, this seems to be the new trend, and it’s a certified way to make money, with movies like A Minecraft Movie making close to a billion dollars, even with a very lukewarm word of mouth. These movies really seem critic proof, people are fans of these properties and will come out in droves to see them adapted. Nintendo, easily the biggest video game company on the planet, would not be expected to so quickly join this trend, especially with how protective they are of their intellectual property. Nintendo already attempted to go to the big screen in 1993, with a live action take on the Super Mario Brothers, a film which seemed to burn them for a long time about ever putting their properties back on the big screen. The film was a commercial and critical failure, and remains a laughingstock by its cast and crew, becoming a cult classic by the modern day.
Fans would be surprised then when a new take on the beloved Nintendo property would be announced in 2020, a animated film from Despicable Me creators, Illumination, and would be further surprised when the cast become a major online discussing point, from Chris Pratt as the lead character, to Jack Black as super villain Bowser, to Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. These casting choices would become memes, and would cause genuine internet discourse, but when the film came to release, these critiques were for nothing, as the film generated over a billion dollars and became the second highest grossing film of the year. A beautifully animated film but one devoid of anything substantial outside of making references to the games themselves, the film seemed created as a reference machine, an easter egg hunt for characters you recognise, leaving behind many typical narrative or characterisation elements that you would need in a film. The success however clearly led to renewed interest in Nintendo crafting big screen content, with a live action Legend of Zelda being in production, and Illumination’s Mario sequel hitting the big screen this week.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, based on the game that it shares a title with and its sequel, picks up after the events of the previous film. Mario and Luigi are now protectors of the Mushroom Kingdom, and Bowser is imprisoned and attempting to make amends. However, the two brothers, Princess Peach and Toad must go on a new adventure into outer space to save the intergalactic princess Rosalina. The princess has been imprisoned by Bowser Jr, who seeks to free his father and help him take over the universe. Along the way, the characters will run into various other references that the previous film did not manage to get to.
In a similar way to the first film, the movie’s focus is the constant iconography it can throw in your face, the unrelenting number of cameos and references to every game in the franchise could be fun for the fans, but for anyone else, it is exhausting. The first film however was an origin story and had the smallest semblance of a narrative going on, with at least a hero’s journey for its title character. This time around, there is a narrative to hinge references on, but no character goes for an arc, there is very little time for any interesting plot, it essentially exists to act as a rollercoaster, travelling from one reference to the next. The characters in this movie do not feel like actual characters, each element feels so committee-managed, and like that Nintendo committee feels scared to even give its most famous characters some sort of flaws. Mario goes through no character arc in this film, he begins and ends the film the same, it is a video game movie at the end of the day, but when translating from one medium to another, you would expect at least plot-less games like the earliest Mario games to be translated into a actual narrative for a big-budget feature.
The main problem with the narrative comes from how incredibly fast-paced the movie is, at slightly over 90 minutes, the film does not allow its characters or audience to breathe for one second. It feels like a film designed for the TikTok audience age, moving at a blistering pace to keep the audience’s attention, and throwing enough new at the audience in each scene to further keep that attention. This short-runtime and fast pace however leave every character somehow feeling lost in their own film, Mario feels like a secondary character in his own film, you could probably count on two hands the number of lines the character says across the film. There are so many characters running around that there is no focus given to any of them, and attempts at character arcs fall flat because of how fast they are resolved. Bowser attempts to redeem myself, and then falls back into villainy across two scenes, with his turn back to the dark side feel laughable how quickly it happens.
Casting celebrity voices as these characters was a massive mode of contention when the first film was announced, with mostly all the cast delivering solid performances across that initial feature. Falling back into the cameo-fest notion, the casting of various new characters was the focus of the marketing of this film, with some of these castings really showcasing the marketing machine that Nintendo is. The announcement of Glen Powell portraying Star Fox, a Nintendo character outside of the Mario Universe, felt like a strange announcement when it’s a late-game cameo in the movie. The knowledge however that Nintendo is supposedly creating a new Star Fox game and setting up a shared Nintendo universe, which could lead to a Super Smash Bros movie, makes the film’s choice to stop halfway through to include the character feel incredibly obvious. Powell is good in the role however, but he feels out of place, and feels more like an IP mine in hopes of also getting his own standalone film.
The rest of the new cast are very solid, Donald Glover makes noises as Yoshi, and the character will walk away being one of the highlights of the movie. Benny Safdie is surprisingly great as new villain Bowser Jr, a winy and obnoxious performance as a petulant child, it really works. Brie Larson feels wasted as Princess Rosalina, a character central to the narrative but only in the characters attempting to save her. Returning actors Charlie Day and Keegan Michael Key deliver good performances as Luigi and Toad, feeling like the actors who are easily fitted to their roles the most. Jack Black, who walked away with a hilarious song and a memorable performance last time, walks away feeling from this with a very wok-man like performance as Bowser, there is nothing really to say about his performance. Chris Pratt and Anya Taylor Joy are really the weakest parts of the cast, as the main characters Mario and Peach, they feel asleep behind the wheel voice-acting wise and clearly not interested in the material. You cannot help but feel bad for them though, when they are acting out such uninteresting material, where the movie essentially allows them the privilege to not even try.
It is all a massive shame as well however, because the animation is truly excellent, this is the best-looking Illumination movie ever made, and all the visual noise of references still manages to look pretty. The worlds look fleshed out and nice, and the movie does manage to be fun because of so. It is a film that will entertain its target demographic of children and super-fans of the franchise, but it does not offer much else outside of that. The comedy misses more than it hits, and the best parts of it feel like the bizarre casting choices that led up to its release. The first film was not the best but at least had a barebones plot for a general audience to latch onto, this one is just visual noise designed to mine as much IP as possible from this property. There are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes, but god only knows how much worse the next one could possibly get
Rhys Reviews 
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