After three years, Mario’s most beloved game has just hit the theatres.

In April 2023, Nintendo released The Super Mario Movie, a film made alongside Illumination centered around the mascot for its company. After its great success, it would receive a sequel based on one of the most beloved 3D Mario games: Super Mario Galaxy.

Galaxy originally released for the Wii in 2007, and to critical acclaim. Many fans still see it as one of the best games to come from the Wii, thanks to its innovations with motion controls. It was big enough that Nintendo recently re-released it alongside its sequel game for the Nintendo Switch.

The game’s storyline is relatively simple. During the Mushroom Kingdom’s star festival, Bowser interrupts the scene and captures Princess Peach, along with her entire castle. Mario then comes across Rosalina, who offers to help him save Peach. The player is tasked with collecting enough power stars to energize their observatory, allowing them to travel to the center of the universe where she was taken.

In The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Rosalina is captured by Bowser Jr, who needs her mystical powers to fuel a cannon strong enough to destroy the universe. One of her lumas comes to Peach and Mario for help, and they discover Yoshi and Fox as they travel to Planet Bowser to stop the cannon from being fired.

Visually, the Mario galaxy movie looks incredible. The film does an excellent job making outer space look like a mystifying place.  Bowser Jr’s voice actor, Benny Safide, does feel a bit out of place. Historically, the character always had a high-pitched voice, but I think it fits well into his more evil mastermind interpretation.

The film uses some elements from its source game, but serves more as a re-imagination than a one-to-one copy of the story.

The original Mario movie (2023) is more free to be whatever it wanted, since it is not trying to draw from any game in particular. I was concerned with whether the galaxy movie would be loyal to its source, but it found a good balance between new ideas and nostalgic accuracy.

There is something to be said about its inclusion of other Mario games, but I do not think it is a problem here. The Mario galaxy world is taking place in the same universe as every other game, as most were featured in the last movie. If Mario is exploring the entire universe, it makes sense that he would be able to find everything there.

However, I do believe it over-reaches too much into other Nintendo titles.

I originally thought of the movie as a Super Smash Bros film, whose game featured most of Nintendo’s characters. The Galaxy Movie which makes multiple references to them (Pikmin, Game & Watch, Donkey Kong and more). I think the biggest flaw of the film is how big of a role Nintendo gave Fox McCloud. Despite not being from the Mario universe.

The movie manages to stick the landing. The film is clearly targeted to kids, and I heard plenty of laughs coming from the families in the crowd. But even as a teen, I still had fun poking at parts that missed the mark, especially alongside my friends.

All in all, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a strong new take for the miniseries. It is not a perfect film, but it is still a great watch with family or friends.

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