Review of the The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently started an 8-5 job and have been trying to reclaim my sanity and hobbies by finding fun things to do on the weekends and after work, and one of my saving graces truly has been my AMC A List subscription. I’ve always had one on and off throughout graduate school, and I recently reclaimed my subscription after a brief stint of thinking I was going to move to India (long story).

Sometimes the movies I really want to see aren’t included on AMC A List, which is sad, but I accept the reality of the situation. I get a ton of use out of this subscription despite that. On a slightly different note though, I used to work professionally as a film critic, which is very much a dying career, and when I would go to the film festivals I watched everything that really excited me.

A List is also an opportunity for me to go outside of my comfort zone. Recently, at the time of typing this, I’ve seen a handful of movies I don’t think I would have ever seen if I had to actually pay for them. I see so many movies throughout different states on A List that I basically make money off of AMC, rather than spending money. I have an entire spreadsheet for it.

And that’s how I ended up seeing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on a random Thursday night, on a Dolby screen, with my sister. We usually avoid weekday nights but figured it might be easier considering the weekends would be packed, but of course we kind of forgot that it was spring break in our area. The Dolby screen did enhance the movie-going experience overall though.

We were so hype for this movie, as we grew up playing Super Mario Galaxy. We know all of the references in those games, so we were curious to see how this panned out. Let’s get into the review!

Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina to save his father and take over the universe, leading Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, and Yoshi on an adventure to save her.

The movie begins on Princess Rosalina’s ship, the Comet Observatory, as she gets ready to read a bedtime story to the Lumas one night. When she hears a loud noise outside, she tells the Luma to stay put while she investigates, and she finds out it’s Bowser Jr. trying to snatch her. She fends him off, but when he discovers the Luma are there, it’s Rosalina’s weakness and she ends up captured trying to protect them.

He brings her back to the planet he made and reveals his grand plan: he wants to drain her cosmic powers to destroy the universe, ultimately achieving his father’s dream. Mario and Luigi, on call to a desert town, discover a Yoshi stuck inside of a pipe and befriend it, leading to a new buddy for their adventures.

Meanwhile, Rosalina manages to free the Luma who was captured with her, and the night of Peach’s birthday party in the Mushroom Kingdom, the Luma lands in the fields. Mario and Peach spot its landing and retrieve the Luma. It begs Peach and Toad to help them save Rosalina, and while the other Toads are reluctant for her to go anywhere, she sneaks off in the night with Toad further into the universe.

The next morning Luigi and Mario hold down the castle and complete some side quests, but then Bowser Jr. rips the entire castle out of the ground and tries to take it to space with him. Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, and the shrunken Bowser are the only ones taken away, but after an epic fight with Bowser Jr., the group is dropped in the Honeyhive Galaxy.

Bowser angers Mario enough to return him to normal size, then reveals he’s just happy to help out. Meanwhile, Peach and Toad arrive at the Gateway Galaxy and while Toad tries to help a lost monkey, it steals his backpack and runs into a casino. They give chase and meet Wart, the owner of the casino, and after Peach defeats all of his goons, he reveals to them Bowser Jr. took Rosalina and has her in the Space Junk Galaxy.

Bowser sacrifices himself so the trio can go free back in Honeyhive, and while they have passage to the Gateway Galaxy, Bowser Jr. rescues his father and reminds them of their true purpose. Peach and Toad befriend Fox McCloud, who offers to take them to Space Junk, and Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi catch up to the group.

However, when they’re on the Star Fox heading there, Bowser Jr. intercepts them (much to Bowser’s despair, as he’s learned to like the guys), then turns Mario and Luigi into babies. They crash land into dinosaur galaxy, and while Fox and Peach debate how to fix the Star Fox, Yoshi and Toad chase the babies up until they run into a t-rex.

Toad is turned into a baby in the process, but Yoshi grabs everyone and successfully evades the dinosaur (and ultimately turns it into a baby too!). When the group is turned back into adults, Luigi rambles into an intercom, which the Lumas hear back on the observatory and bring the ship to the group.

It’s there Peach discovers Rosalina is her long-lost sister and that she has the power of the cosmos too. With the Lumas and Fox, the group heads towards Bowser Jr.’s manmade planet. As Fox distracts the guards outside the planet, Peach, Luigi, Mario, and Yoshi head onto the planet.

They split up, but when Peach and Mario are discovered, they successfully evade Bowser Jr.’s traps. Bowser goes to stop them, but Mario outsmarts him. They watch with a devastated Bowser Jr. as he falls into the lava, but he emerges as skeleton Bowser and prepares to fight with his son.

Mario sends Peach inside, where she revives Rosalina, but not before an epic fight between Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi (with a surprise appearance from Mr. Game and Watch) and Bowser Jr./skeletal Bowser. With Peach and Rosalina’s power, they revive the planet. Together with the Luma and Rosalina, they rebuiled the castle in the Mushroom Kingdom, and Bowser/Bowser Jr. are sent to prison.

The film ends, after all of the credits, with Princess Daisy stopping the monkey from robbing someone else.

Overall Thoughts

I feel like this movie had such good pacing in the beginning, but began to lose steam by the end. The introduction of other Nintendo characters was also very much cashing in on the nostalgia factor, and I will say, as someone who dutifully played the Star Fox games, I was scandalized to hear Fox voiced by Glen Powell.

All jokes aside, this is a fun movie. I loved hearing the audience gasp when Game and Watch appeared and was then killed—that was definitely a reference for the adults. There were some solid laugh out loud moments, then there were some serious moments as well with good themes for adults and kids alike.

On the flip side though some of the characterization was all over the place, and the Galaxy references are there—but there could have been more. I would’ve loved to see more development for Rosalina, and Yoshi beyond the fact he wandered all over New York City as a tourist. Bowser Jr. also felt pretty flat, but it made sense considering he’s an immature kid who literally got kicked out of boarding school.

All in all this is a good time, but not the greatest movie structurally. And that’s okay—sometimes a crowd pleaser movie doesn’t need to be perfect. Just don’t think too hard about it at the end of the day.

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