The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is out tomorrow on April 1 and the first wave of reviews has just come out. Can a bigger cast featuring Yoshi, Rosalina, and more pals elevate the sequel into more than just another animated spectacle dishing out Nintendo references at a dizzying pace? The verdict so far is mixed.
Arriving just three years after The Super Mario Bros. Movie dominated Hollywood with a more than $1 billion global box office, Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment are back to see if they can top themselves in a new adventure that takes the titular plumbers to the stars to meet new friends and battle new threats. We know Star Fox is making an appearance and Wario is rumored to be hiding out somewhere, but does the movie serve to be something more than just a delivery device for retro gaming easter eggs?
Behold the two types of Mario Galaxy Movie reviewers. “The Super Mario games have always been about breathless imagination and kinetic joy,” writes Andy Robinson at VGC. “On these frontiers, The Super Mario Galaxy movie delivers.” William Bibbiani at The Wrap could not agree less. “This movie isn’t faithful, it’s terrified,” he writes. “Any deviation from the established norm, any iota of imagination, anything actually cinematic has been carefully removed from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, as though creativity and artfulness were an infestation of ticks.”
The Mario Galaxy Movie has a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 43 percent so far. That’s not great. The score for the first movie wasn’t so hot either at just 59 percent. Is the new movie that much worse, or are critics just growing bored with the dazzling gags at the expense of seemingly just about everything else a movie is normally expected to do? “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a nonstop barrage of stuff with no meaningful connection or cohesion,” writes Germain Lussier at our sister-site i09. As a super fan I’m ready to settle for a 90-minute sizzle reel of gags, references, and licensed needle drops, though it would also be cool to see Nintendo’s mascots wrapped around a genuinely decent animated flick.
“In one moment, we’re watching Rosalina fend off a giant robot with anime-like skills, only for her to be frustratingly sidelined for the majority of the picture,” writes Clint Worthington for RogerEbert.com. “What few character beats they might set up get shoved off to one-off gags, or little two-line check-ins every twenty minutes, so we can keep those balls in the air and the digestible sight gags flowing.”
“It’s a-meh,” sighs Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times. Owen Gleiberman at Variety is harsher. He called the first Mario Movie one of the “best animated films in years,” but thinks the sequel is one of the worst. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is frenetic in such an impersonal way that it feels like the entire film should be put on Ritalin,” he writes.
Even gaming sites whose reviewers might be more amenable to the t-shirt gun blasts of inside jokes aren’t exactly raving about the experience. Gamesradar‘s Bradley Russell gave it three out of five stars, pointing to Fox McCloud’s appearance as one of the letdowns. “It only ends up creating the feeling that, at times, you would rather be watching a Star Fox movie than Mario jumping and ‘Wahoo-ing’ his way through the cosmos,” he writes.
Clint Gage at IGN was also barely impressed. “OK is the best word I can think of to describe both the quality of this film, and my reaction to all the choices they made while making the film,” he writes. “It’s fun seeing all that stuff on screen, but without some kind of relatable story thriving underneath those references, it’s not as effective as it could be.”
I would be shocked if this bad buzz dramatically altered the movie’s commercial prospects. I’m taking my kids to see it opening day for what will no doubt be just the first of dozens of viewings over the next few years. But it sounds like Nintendo could do way better.