The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: Movie Review

Cast: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Donald Glover, Brie Larson
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic

The sequel to The Super Mario Bros Movie from 2023 is finally here.

One of the biggest animated films of all times in terms of box office gross, the latest has a lot riding on it. Once again, Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt appears as Mario and Charlie Day is the mustachioed brother Luigi.

When Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is kidnapped by Bowser Jr (Safdie) and whisked away to the Space Junk Galaxy, Princess Peach (Joy), Mario and Luigi - along with newcomer Yoshi (Glover) and the shrunken original Bowser (Black) head off to rescue her - and for Bowser to reunite with his son.

There's very little that really happens in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a film that seems to exist to expand the Mario universe and to pay homage to some of the Mario nostalgia.

In fairness, a few of those "remember this?" heavy moments land pretty well, and there's a nice robot riff on Zootopia's sloth DMV workers, but much of this feels like soulless frenetic box-ticking for Nintendo fans.

Despite some incredible animation here, there's certainly not the emotional edge you'd be expecting and despite the two Princesses looking like Elsa and Anna from Frozen, there's no real feeling of history here at all. It's a disappointment to say the least and it all ends up feeling distinctly "meh" rather than "Mario".