The iconically failed “Super Mario Bros.” live-action film adaptation from 1993 left such deep wounds that Nintendo subsequently refrained from exploiting its most valuable brand alongside “Pokémon” in film form for three decades. The fact that a lot of money was left on the street became apparent in 2023, when “The Super Mario Bros. Film” attracted more than five million visitors to cinemas in this country and brought more than $1.3 billion into the coffers globally. That was enough for second place in the annual charts both in Germany and worldwide, behind another children’s room classic: “Barbie”. But while Greta Gerwig, Mattel and Warner Bros. are still puzzling over how one half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon could possibly be repeated, Nintendo and the “Minions” studio Illumination Entertainment have left no stone unturned with the sequel “The Super Mario Galaxy Film”.
Three years of production time is not a long time for an animated Hollywood film anyway. But the pace of the sequel seems even more impressive when you consider that “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” not only looks fantastic again, but is also packed with worlds, characters, sounds and plot elements familiar from the video games. Not to mention the Easter eggs, which can hardly be counted. In our review of the predecessor we noted that “hardly a second goes by when fans don’t say ‘Ding!’ and you feel reminded of another pleasant moment in your very personal Nintendo history”. With “The Super Mario Galaxy Film” we now feel like we have reached the millisecond range: you would probably have to search for minutes in any given screenshot to really discover all the allusions and references. But the constant fire of recognition doesn’t just have positive sides.
Bonsai Bowser: The miniature villain is still stuck in his personal dollhouse fortress!
Thanks to the active support of Mario (original voice: Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), peace has returned to Princess Peach’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) mushroom kingdom. Meanwhile, Bonsai Bowser (Jack Black), who has shrunk to amiibo size, sits in his dollhouse prison and works to get his constant temper tantrums under control with art therapy. But while Mario and Luigi find a new friend in the form of the cute dinosaur Yoshi (Donald Glover) during a plumbing job in the desert town of Tostarena, disaster strikes on another planet: Star Mother Rosalina (Brie Larson) is reading a bedtime story to her Lumas when her castle is attacked by the vengeful brush-wielding Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie).
The villain offspring wants to use the kidnapped princess’s magical energy to fire a world-destroying cannon on his Death Star-like planetary fortress. Luckily, one of the Lumas makes it to the Mushroom Kingdom to ask Peach for help. A journey through the galaxies full of stopovers begins, during which the rescue crew, among other things, relies on the help of the daring space pilot Fox McCloud (Glen Powell) to get to her destination in time…
If you prefer watching rather than reading, you can also watch our YouTube review of “The Super Mario Galaxy Film” here:
The fans have been waiting for him the most!
Everyone knows Peach, Rosalina probably much less so. In its 98-minute running time, “The Super Mario Galaxy Film” delves much deeper and more specifically into video game lore than its predecessor. At the same time, it even goes beyond the pure Mario world and takes the first step towards a possible “Super Smash Bros.” movie with the “StarFox” hero Fox McCloud. But let’s start with the hotly anticipated appearance of an absolute Super Mario all-star: Yoshi! The constantly hungry dino uses a fantasy language in which you can only hear his own name over and over again – almost a little like Groot from the “Guardians Of The Galaxy”. That’s why Donald Glover is the only US star who is also in the German version – after all, you don’t have to translate the already incomprehensible babble.
A first march through New York City immediately gets you excited – and with its constant Jump cuts Also visually it’s really quite something! You immediately look forward to the following interactions with Mario and Luigi. But puff cake! In the episode, Yoshi repeatedly uses his long tongue to swallow something (and excrete it again, packaged in an egg with the iconic green dots) at particularly appropriate (or even better: particularly inappropriate) moments. But aside from this solid running gag, Yoshi is barely given anything to do – and even with that, he’s still treated better than most of the other characters. “The Super Mario Galaxy Film” introduces new characters (of course well-known to video game fans) every minute – but then it hardly knows what to do with them.
Everyone has been waiting for him: Fan favorite Yoshi (Donald Glover) is finally in “The Super Mario Galaxy Film”!
Even Mario and Luigi have shockingly few highlights this time. “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” seem even more impressive in retrospect: all these accumulated characters – and yet each of them got their own personal scenes. In “The Super Mario Galaxy Film,” on the other hand, after the initial recognition hype (or the question: “Huh, do I have to know him?”) it’s usually over again. By the way, exactly the same applies to the numerous worlds visited. There is one nostalgic sugar shock after another, but then there is rarely anything nutritious to follow – almost like Doom scrolling on TikTok, where time flies, but hardly anything gets stuck. The film draws solely on our memories of previous console experiences – but hardly creates any new moments that go beyond the rolling of the credits.
The only relationship that is at least a little touching is actually Bowser Jr.’s with his father, who used puppet theater to instill in him his dream of world-destroying omnipotence when he was a child. Bowser Jr.’s misguided “I just want my daddy to love me” overkill is actually surprisingly touching and coherent. Even in the dominating chase sequences, which are otherwise all too numerous and at some point hardly stand out from each other, Bowser Jr. proves to be the MVP with his magic brush: his purple blobs, with which he can create creatures like a huge ink dragon out of nothing, prove to be a creative glimmer of hope in the general action scene.
Conclusion: More action, more pace, more characters. Less humor, less charm, less story. But once again the full roar of nostalgia, this time especially for those whose most formative video game phase was in the “Super Mario Sunshine” and “Super Mario Galaxy” era between 2002 and 2013.