'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' Left Me Feeling Empty Inside

Let's get this out of the way right up top: The Super Mario Galaxy movie is going to make a zillion dollars. It's a gorgeously animated film that's jam-packed with action and videogame easter eggs that's sure to be a crowd pleaser for many filmgoing families. It will get an A CinemaScore. Your kids are going to be dazzled by the visuals and they will love the experience of watching it. When they grow up, seeing this movie in theaters will probably be a core memory for them.

Having said all that.

It's possible to acknowledge that all the above is true while also acknowledging that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a terrible film and, by extension, a sad sign of what it takes to be a commercially successful project in today's Hollywood. Galaxy's wonderful visuals stand in stark contrast to every other component of its shoddy filmmaking: character development, plotting, pacing, and creating an overall satisfying narrative arc. It's not quite anti-art. It's more like... null art? While the film borrows its title from one of Nintendo's greatest videogames of all time, here that title evokes the experience of staring into the void and hoping it doesn't stare back at you.

Speaking of titles: The titles for this film and its predecessor (The Super Mario Bros. Movie) are incredibly apt. There's no attempt to conjure something evocative with those movie names; it's just, "Here's the videogame in movie form!" That's the best way to conceive of these projects: as a way to efficiently distill the components of the videogames into movie form for mass consumption.

The plot of Galaxy revolves around Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), a being of immense power. One day, she's kidnapped by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), who intends to harness her power to create a super weapon that will allow him and his father Bowser (Jack Black) to rule the universe. But Bower Sr. is still being imprisoned in shrunken form by Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the Mushroom Kingdom. When Bowser Jr.'s plans intrude on the Mushroom Kingdom's peace, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) must team up with Yoshi (Donald Glover) to help save the world yet again.

The primary issue with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is that there are no stakes to anything that's happening on screen. Yes, Bowser Jr. might make a gun that kills everyone in the universe. But for a film to be compelling and relatable, the protagonists typically need to encounter some problems during their journey. While that technically happens, virtually every obstacle is resolved within minutes, as we're frantically whisked onto the next set piece. There's never any need to worry that things won't work out perfectly because the moment you start even wondering how Mario and Luigi will solve a problem, it's already over.

There are inklings of a better script here, with Bowser Sr. battling his true nature and debating whether or not to actually team up with Mario and Luigi, not to mention the possible connections between Princess Peach and Rosalina. But these emotional beats are given the thinnest wisps of time to develop, in favor of a chase scene, an action scene, or just some frames with some visual references from the videogames shoved in. For a film called The Super Mario Galaxy movie, it shares more in common with the pacing of a bullet hell game like Enter the Gungeon or Ikaruga than it does with the exploratory wonder of the actual Super Mario Galaxy. The film's conclusion left me feeling as though I'd spent 90 minutes eating a meal but was still famished. What did I just watch? Was anything of value created here?

I understand that Galaxy is a film primarily made for kids. But movies targeted at children can also be great. I appreciated what William Bibbiani had to say about the film over at TheWrap:

'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' is for children. Nobody thinks otherwise, so if anyone was already typing “What did you expect, ‘Citizen Kane?’” then I can stop you right there. Children can enjoy slop — I should know, I grew up on dreck like “The Care Bears Movie” and “GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords” — but that doesn’t mean kids wouldn’t also appreciate a proper meal. Nobody complains when a kids movie is great. When a kids movie has interesting characters and an involving plot and a theme worth exploring, nobody says the makers of 'KPop Demon Hunters' screwed up and should have made it worse. We know kids like good movies. So making them bad is a choice, not a necessity.

I suspect that the next Mario movie, whatever it turns out to be, will be more of the same. Why mess with success? But at least we can hope for more from the upcoming Zelda movie, right?

A man can dream, though. A man can dream.