#REVIEW: “THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE”

Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong

In 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie brought Nintendo‘s beloved world of pipes, plumbers, and random moving platforms into theatres. Illumination assembled an A-list celebrity Voice Cast, the finest CG render farms, and crammed in as much Nintendo imagery as 93 minutes could possibly allow. They built an army of classic Mario enemies, Mario Karts, power-ups, plumbing, parkour, parkour, parkour! The only thing missing from The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a movie script. Maybe that’s a bit harsh.

The Screenplay recycled elements from the unfairly maligned Super Mario Bros. (1993) involving a secret portal in the sewers of Brooklyn that brings two struggling plumbers into the Mushroom Kingdom where they must defeat Bowser, an unruly turtle–but as a whole, the story felt unsatisfying, relying far too heavily on Mario‘s use of power-ups. Eating the right mushroom was the solution to every single problem. Delightful graphics and performances aside, the soul of the Movie felt procedurally generated by a well-intentioned computer whose only aim was to string together as many visual references as possible.

Cut to 2026. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie promises to do the same but with more Galaxy imagery, more enemies, and–taking the place of the Donkey Kong Country crossover—we’re getting Star Fox. Gone are my expectations that any of this will feel like a real movie. It’s more akin to a fan-service fireworks display–a rollercoaster that twists and turns through hundreds of allusions, shout-outs, and reminders of the games. It’s a feature-length unboxing of all the Mario stuff you love, but didn’t get in the first go-round. Forget conventional narratives. Forget character arcs. When it comes to a semblance of story, Galaxy tries even less than its predecessor. Sure, there’s a new space princess, Luna (Brie Larson), who has been kidnapped by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) to “power” his evil kingdom in space, but that’s pretty much it.

If you’ve been playing since childhood, you’ll go ‘ooh‘ and ‘ahh‘ at least once every couple of minutes as you absorb the finest rendering of these game assets ever produced. If you aren’t familiar with the references, this movie is not for you. Unless you’re a child. And ultimately, suprise surprise, this movie is for children. Even though there are plenty of movie-going adults with a spiritual connection to Mario World, Nintendo‘s implicit goal with this series seems to be a sleek, high-budget puppet show for kids–sometimes quite literally. As one of those Mario-obsessed adults, I enjoyed Galaxy more than Bros. because I’ve had a couple of years to process the idea that these products aren’t movies in the conventional sense. In a paradoxical way, Galaxy has more structural integrity because it doesn’t do any of the character setup that Mario Bros. tried, which fell flat because it never developed into a coherent arc. If you go into Galaxy expecting the most lavish playthrough of a futuristic Mario game that we can only dream of within the bounds of present-day tech, you won’t be disappointed. Holding Galaxy to any standard beyond that is more fool-hardy than… betting against Cloud Luigi, who can defeat any villain with the power of clouds. I promise that idea won’t make more sense in the context of the movie, because the movie doesn’t do context. Just sit back with your favourite power-up and enjoy the gameplay.

Universal Pictures Canada release THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE Wednesday, April 1, 2026.