After three years of waiting since the first Mario movie, the sequel is finally here. Released on April 3, everyone was… surprisingly uneager to watch our favorite plumber’s next big screen adventure?
What was supposed to be a big hit had a release marked by dire reviews and concerned opinions on the state of modern animation as a whole. So what happened?
Even if the reviews were great, given my opinions on the first movie being mediocre at best, and my general untrustworthiness of video game adaptations after the “Sonic the Hedgehog” trilogy-soon-to-be-quadrilogy and the dreaded “A Minecraft Movie,” the sequel still had a lot to do in order to impress me.
The first movie was a fun time clearly made with a lot of passion, but it had many flaws, leaving me feeling pretty neutral during the whole experience besides when Bowser and Luigi were on screen.
After watching “Mario Galaxy Movie” a week ago, I was honestly impressed with the film. Other reviews would have you believe that this movie was nothing but slop garbage, some even calling it worse than AI, but it turned out to be a notable improvement on the first. Its references were much more tasteful, its writing more tight, though still not perfect and its classic Illumination–style humor (you know the type) kept to a minimum.
The movie’s plot is largely focused on Bowser Jr., who captures Princess Rosalina in order to achieve his father’s dreams of world domination. Princess Peach is alerted of this, and chooses to chase after Bowser Jr. to save Rosalina, while the plumbers fall behind in their own B plot with Bowser to catch up to her.
The highlight of this narrative is definitely the time Bowser and his son get to interact, which are quite heartwarming and adorable moments of father-son, evil-fire-breathing-turtle bonding which somehow manage to showcase the best of this movie’s animation, which is another positive.
Despite being a “Super Mario Galaxy” movie, its biggest references aren’t even related to Galaxy itself, instead surprisingly being from other Nintendo franchises.
Nintendo history buffs and fans of other Nintendo franchises in general such as Star Fox will definitely enjoy what this movie has to offer for them, and they truly don’t feel like surface level advertisements or pandering. These aspects help demonstrate the love that the team has for not just Mario, but Nintendo as a whole, and makes the movie a delight to watch compared to the first.
The humor was probably one of the most criticized parts of the movie, but frankly I found it was much funnier than the first. Many of the jokes and references in the first movie felt rather groan inducing, patronizing to any actual fans and not even landing at all for those that weren’t. The movie was a lot of set pieces without the substance or throughline needed for it to work.
The sequel, on the other hand, made me genuinely laugh with its humor, genuinely go “awww” at the sweet moments, and genuinely jump out of my seat at the references and “hype moments” and scream things in the theatre that I probably didn’t need to.
Though despite all of my praises, the reviews make some valid criticisms, with the biggest definitely being the pacing. While the scene-to-scene dialogue and humor have definitely received an improvement in the writing room, the actual pacing of the movie still leaves a bit to be desired.
It feels fast and I didn’t even realize that the movie was almost over by the end because I felt like there should have been more. It doesn’t cause as much whiplash as the first movie, but there’s still improvements to be made.
Not to say this film is perfect, it definitely isn’t, but the reviews comparing it to AI slop or some Cocomelon-level mindless color show are really insulting the effort and heart this movie clearly has.
It is flawed, and some might call it an advertisement, but any movie is, and this one at least never blatantly felt like one. At the very least, the personality and creativity of this movie was a breath of fresh air from the actual Mario games themselves, which have grown stale in recent years.
All in all, the movie is fun. Whether you find it agonizingly or delightfully so, it’s worth watching. It has more heart and care than the first, and was a much appreciated improvement in such a short time.
Whether you’re a casual fan or a hardcore gamer who buys everything the company puts out (no matter how expensive), there’s at least something you can find to love in it.
It may not be that mind-blowing of a movie, but it’s good fun and a joy to watch which is what is most important. The Mario movie is no “American Psycho” after all.
It doesn’t need to be that lifechanging, it just needs to be good, and I think it is.
