I don’t envy the filmmakers who were tasked with adapting the Super Mario Bros. video games into a movie.  While there are interesting-looking characters aplenty, there’s no narrative beyond the characters navigating a wacky-verse on their way to a Final Boss showdown.  Combine that limitation with a slavish approach to the source material and you end up with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a collection of scenes that never gel into a story.  Although the movie looks great, it’s as uninvolving as watching someone play a video game.

Galaxy Movie has an annoying habit of introducing characters without explaining who they are or why we should care about them.  In the opening scene, Princess Rosalita (Brie Larson) reads a bedtime story to a gaggle of colorful star creatures called Lumas.  As someone unfamiliar with Mario lore, I mistakenly believed she was Princess Peach with a new hairstyle.

All heck breaks loose when Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) appears in a gigantic robot to kidnap her.  Rosalita fights off the attackers valiantly, but in the end she and a brave Luma are captured and whisked away to Planet Bowser in the Space Junk Galaxy.

Since this movie is ostensibly about the Mario Bros, they appear in the next scene.  Since the Brooklyn plumbing market is tough, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are doing intergalactic gigs.  The warp portal they found in the last movie can take them anywhere there’s a clog, and they dirt bike over to their clients on a sand-covered planet with pyramids hovering upside-down in the sky.  None of this makes any sense, but I did wonder if the movie was parodying Dune.

At the behest of a race of Day of the Dead-themed totems, Mario and Luigi go to work.  It’s great that no matter where you go in the galaxy, plumbing is a universal constant, like a breathable atmosphere.  The brothers find a dinosaur named Yoshi (Donald Glover) is responsible for the blockage, and the Bros add him to the team because he’s cute.

Somewhere in outer space, Junior mentions something about using Rosalita’s powers to conquer the universe.  When Junior manhandles the Luma, Rosalia helps it escape and tells it to seek out Princess Peach.  Plot A, meet Plot B.

Back in the Mushroom Kingdom, it’s Princess Peach’s birthday.  Luigi teases Mario over his unrequited love for Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), a joke directed towards the segment of the audience who think girls are yucky.  At the big party the Mushroom People are throwing in Peach’s honor, Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) notices Yoshi and asks, “So some cool dinosaur just shows up and he’s now part of the group?”  Yeah, that’s video game logic.

Mario finds Peach alone, depressed at not knowing her roots.  Just when Mario is about to make his move, the escaped Luma crash lands.  It reveals that Princess Rosalina was captured by Bowser Jr for nefarious purposes.  Peach decides–out of boredom, presumably–that she and Toad head for the Gateway Galaxy to search for Rosalina.

Peach leaves Mario and Luigi in charge, and the two keep the peace via a montage of video game action.  They also keep an eye on Bowser (Jack Black), who was reduced to toy size in the original movie.  He now lives in a mini castle where he works out his aggression painting.  Bowser begs to be big again, and while Luigi is sympathetic, Mario doesn’t trust him.  Of all the returning characters, Black’s Bowser still is the only one worth paying attention to.

Bowser Jr arrives to rescue his dad, but Mario refuses to hand him over.  Junior quickly overpowers Mario with the help of his magical paintbrush, while his spaceship extracts Peach’s castle.  Yoshi foils the plot by crashing the robot into Junior’s spaceship, which sends the castle crashing down on an unknown planet.  In case you hadn’t guessed, the story numbingly unfolds as a series of “And then this happens” events, like a children’s book.

Meanwhile, Peach and Toad arrive at Gateway Galaxy, which is full of weird characters, the best being the robot at the information desk.  For reasons, Peach and Toad descend into the underworld, which consists of bars, a cube-like casino and meet a Big Boss named Wart (Luis Guzmán).  After Peach and Toad fight off the baddies, they learn that Rosalina’s a prisoner of the Koopas in the Space Junk Galaxy.

Mario, Luigi and Bowser’s sidequest is pointless, aside from Bowser tricking Mario into restoring him back to normal size.  After a deal is struck with the planet’s Queen Bee (not Beyoncé, but Issa Rae), Mario and Luigi are given passage to the Gateway Galaxy, while Bowser is reunited with his son.

The remainder of the film involves everyone joining forces to battle Bowser’s army and rescue Rosalina.  Another Nintendo character named Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), who suspiciously resembles Han Solo, joins the fray and gives the movie a shot of adrenaline, but it’s too little, too late.

Recommendation

I’m tempted to say that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie peaks with the studio title cards, but that’s not true.  The (very) late introduction of another hero saves the movie from being deathly dull.  Before that happens, the fun suggested by the Nintendo and Illumination introductions is in short supply.  The movie has dialog, action sequences and interesting looking characters, but no spark.  The film somehow manages to do the impossible and make the extremely light original movie look better by comparison.

The Super Mario Bros Movie wasn’t a great animated film, but at least its plot had stakes.  I wanted to see Mario and Luigi become heroes and rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of the evil Bowser.  The scenes inspired by the Mario Bros games were fun to watch.  Jack Black bellowing “Peaches” was a mildly subversive moment.  The movie was bright and colorful, with enough entertainment for small children and fans of the games.

Galaxy Movie is basically the same movie as before, except that there is no causality to anything that happens.  Events unfold arbitrarily, which force our heroes into action because they have nothing else to do.  There are no character arcs to speak of, unless you count Bowser reverting back to his original size.  Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad go places and do things with no clear motivation for doing so.  They are action figures pushed around a colorful landscape with no meaning attributed to their behavior.

I realize that I’m not this film’s target audience.  As best as I can tell, the movie was made for three kinds of moviegoers.  The first is children 3-5 years old, because the movie resembles a Little Golden Book brought to life.  The dialog is simplistic and uses the fewest words necessary to get the point across.  The story is one that a toddler can follow, a very simple adventure narrative with no complexity.  The characters are distinct and cute and are defined by what they can do, but not their personalities.  The story is so slight I often lost track of what was happening.

The next audience segment Galaxy Movie was made for are lifelong fans of the games who want to see video action on a big screen.  The animators behind the film have made a beautiful-looking film, where the action is clean and easy to follow.  Mission accomplished, I guess.

Lastly, the movie is ideal for parents to watch with their children after popping an edible.  It’s trippy and inconsequential like Trolls Band Together, colorful and filled with smooth action that a person can follow while stoned.  I suspect that this will be how those parents will endure this movie playing on repeat at home after it lands on streaming.

I can’t fault the returning voice actors (Chris Pratt et al.) for how this movie turned out.  The dialog they speak is perfunctory and impossible to bring to life.  Charlie Day and Jack Black bring their usual energy, but have nothing funny to say.  Black sadly has no “Peaches” moment in this movie.  Among the new cast members, Donald Glover is unrecognizable as Yoshi, Bennie Safdie is ok as Bowser Jr., while Brie Larson is dull as Princess Rosalina.  Issa Rae and Luis Guzmán are in this, although you’d never know it.  Only Glen Powell makes an impression as Fox McCloud.  In fact, the movie is on autopilot until his character appears, at which point the movie awakens a bit.  Incredibly, there wasn’t one memorable line in the entire ninety minutes.

I didn’t hate The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, because that would imply that it invoked an emotional response from me.  The movie is energetic but inert, a story with no purpose besides offering up visuals.  Little kids and fans of the games may enjoy it, but for me the movie was listless and uninvolving.  Not recommended.

Analysis

Before The Super Mario Bros Movie came out, reports mentioned how gun-shy Nintendo was to make a movie after the box office failure and critical drubbing of the 1993 movie starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizimo.  I assumed that Sony had a firm grip on the production of the animated film, and the results imply that approach.  Illumination produced a film that treated the video game characters extremely respectfully, which feels strange considering the studio is known for the irreverent and juvenile Despicable Me and Minions films.

The Super Mario Bros Movie represents a very conservative approach to the Nintendo intellectual property.  I’m sure this made Nintendo happy, but left me wanting as a member of the audience.  The movie was OK, but contained nothing that would have made it entertaining for adults besides nostalgia for playing the games.  There were no inside jokes, no meta references, no clever dialog, nothing.  Aside from Bowser professing his love for Princess Peach in song, there was nothing in the movie that could be considered as objectionable.

Based on the overwhelming success of the first movie ($1.3 billion world-wide), I would have thought that Nintendo would let Illumination take a few risks with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.  Do something interesting with the material, like including more jokes, toss in a few double-entendres and snappy repartee.  Nope.  Incredibly, the sequel is even more bland than the original.

Is it possible that the bosses at Nintendo took offense to the original movie?  That’s the only explanation for why the follow-up is so plain.  It’s as if those overseeing the movie took a Sharpie to the screenplay and excised everything that would (or could) have reflected negatively on Mario and company.  While there are a few mild jokes, the movie is uninteresting to a fault.  It is the equivalent of keeping a toy in its box to preserve its value instead of playing with it.  The movie is the product of filmmaking designed to be inoffensive first and entertaining second.

To be fair, Bowser has a few moments when he’s a miniature rage machine.  And the scene he has with his son involving Bowser’s fascist bedtime story is OK.  But everything else just comes across as tap water.  The post-credits scene with the blue diamond hints at some anarchy in the sequel, but I doubt that will ever happen because this movie was so tame.

As I mentioned above, I don’t hold the voice actors responsible for the movie.  They were given a lot of money to recite dialog and do what they’re told.  That’s the only plausible explanation for Brie Larson and Donald Glover being involved in this movie.  Why would they turn down a bag of cash for what was a couple days’ work requiring minimal effort?  Larson and Glover are terrific actors, but I don’t understand the reason behind hiring them if the average person can’t tell who they are when they speak their lines.  Larson is a great dramatic actor, but her speaking voice is very indistinct.  Glover’s voice is so heavily altered here that I have no idea if he actually read Yoshi’s lines or not.

Charlie Day and Jack Black are genuine wild men, willing to say and do anything for a laugh.  There were several moments when both felt primed to let loose, but the screenplay refuses to give them a payoff.  Day and Black can make even bland characters interesting, and I figure this gig pays well, but it’s frustrating to watch a movie with actors like these giving a performance that is only defined not by what they say, but by the sound of their voice.

People give Chris Pratt a lot of flack for doing a lot of voice-over work in animated films recently.  Again, I don’t begrudge anyone for taking the offers that come their way.  Pratt’s not great as a vocal actor, but his voice is recognizable enough and his lovable loser affectations are a fit Mario.  His work in the Super Mario films isn’t noteworthy, but the same can be said of his fellow actors.

What makes or breaks a voice actor is what they’re given to work with, and Pratt and the rest have been given next to nothing in both of these Mario Bros movies.  Filmmaking dictated by brand management isn’t entertainment, it’s an infomercial.

What would Ebert think?

Roger Ebert famously said that video games could never be art.  (I’ve linked his articles below.)   I wonder what he would have thought about The Super Mario Bros Movie or The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, films that recreate game play and are made with artistry, but are worse than the experience of playing the games themselves.  Cribbing from Ebert’s review of Doom, both movies are “like some kid came over and is using your computer and won’t let you play.”  I could look past the shortcomings of Galaxy Movie if it at least tried to tell a story, as the first one did in a very basic way.  But the sequel is too content to serve as an advertisement for the games upon which it’s based.

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/video-games-can-never-be-art

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/okay-kids-play-on-my-lawn

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/doom-2005

Trolls Band Together

Occasionally I find myself with too many movies to review and not enough time to do the job.  One such instance was with Trolls Band Together (2023), which I still remember even though it wasn’t all that good.  That said, it’s still much better than Galaxy Movie.

Both movies feature trippy visuals that I think are best appreciated by adults on mind-altering chemicals.  What elevates Trolls 3 is that there’s evidence of creative thought behind the film.  The movie includes a running gag where the name of every boy band from the Nineties is referenced in dialog.  There’s an extended sequence involving the characters trying not to catch a glittering form of pink eye from their friends.  The villains are a weirdly compelling brother-sister duo who aspire to be pop stars.  There’s a little worm character with an impossibly deep voice.  Lastly, the movie features great songs.  If the people behind Galaxy Movie had only shown as much imagination as those behind the third Trolls movie, it could have been worth watching.

Random thoughts

In both movies, the blue Luma, a.k.a. Lumalee, expresses his inner anarchist with a friendly tone of voice.  Is this bit ever going to pay off in these movies?

For all the time Peach and Toad spend at the Junction Galaxy, the only gag is provided by a throwaway character, the robot at the information desk.

If only this movie had introduced Fox McCloud in the early going.  The character brings the movie much-needed energy, but arrives when the movie is two-thirds over.

Why include a direct reference to Jurassic Park/World and do nothing interesting with it?

I know the plot isn’t the point of Galaxy Movie, but why does Rosalina send her sister elsewhere, then never bother to look for her afterwards?  Years pass and she never tries to visit her sister.

As a character, Yoshi should be the source of umpteen gags, given that he’s constantly eating things and pooping them out encased in eggs, but no.  The movie doesn’t even bother to use him as a constant source of mischief, like Curious George.