There are some things you might expect, even count on, in a Super Mario Galaxy movie. The introduction of the celestial Princess Rosalina? Check. A scene of her reading bedtime stories to her adorable, glowing star children Lumas? Check. A wild revenge scenario that takes Princess Peach, Mario, Luigi and Toad away from the Mushroom Kingdom and into space, where intergalactic travel requires little more than a well-placed launch star that will hurtle anyone safely through cosmos and into the cozy, self-contained gravitational pulls of nearby planets? This one might depend on how familiar you are with the game itself, first released in 2007, but let’s say check anyway.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which opens in theaters Wednesday, has some real surprises (Easter eggs, if you will), both consequential and not. One of those, the introduction of Mario’s Nintendo peer Star Fox, has already been teased. But for me, the most unexpected and delightful discovery is that Bowser (voiced once more by Jack Black) and his neglected son Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) are painters. The elder uses the brush as a kind of therapy as he works through his demons while in loose captivity, still shrunken down to the size of a toy as we left him in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” in Princess Peach’s castle. The younger, so inconsequential that he’s neither seen nor mentioned in the first film, paints to destroy and win his father’s love by taking over the galaxy — a plan that Bowser would, on his rare night off from conquering, read to Bowser Jr. before bedtime. Absent though he might have been for most of Bowser Jr.’s childhood, when he was there, he really went all out with puppetry and showmanship.
This isn’t the only family drama imbued into “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” — Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) is also wondering about her origins. But thankfully Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are spared any such soul-searching. They’re just along for the ride. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri, as producers, seem committed to keeping things light and playful even while beholden to advancing some kind of coherent, moderately compelling story where there wasn't one previously.
On a certain level, everyone, including returning directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and screenwriter Matthew Fogel, understands that the many people likely to come out to see a Super Mario movie probably aren’t interested in extensive backstories, meaningful character arcs or real-world grittiness. The joy of video games like Super Mario Galaxy is simple and pure: The viewer is transported to a colorful fantasy where space isn’t scary — it’s inviting, shimmering and full of wonder. No one wants to see Yoshi get stabbed (which, yes, really happened in the 1993 movie). They just want to hang out in the Gateway Galaxy, or feel the real stakes of a rotating fire bar.
The film adds a slew of new voice actors to the mix, like Brie Larson as Rosalina (sounding, perhaps, a little too much like Taylor-Joy's Peach) and Donald Glover as Yoshi, a chaotic and enjoyable addition to the gang. As in the games, he’s sure to be a fan favorite. It’s also not completely committed to the worlds of the Galaxy games, as some super fans have already noted and critiqued, which seems excessively strict and unimaginative for this kind of source material. There is one particularly inventive sequence that blends a rendering of Mario in his original 2D 8-bit form, blurry pixels and all, with the 3D beauty of the more modern iterations.
There is, of course, something inherently cynical about “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which is that on a certain level it exists primarily to make more money off these characters, through the games, the merchandise and the inevitable theme park rides. This film is also very high on the otherworldly success of its predecessor. The Lumas are obsessed with the stories of the heroic plumber brothers. The Toads are too. One even wears Mario pajamas and carries around a Mario toy, inviting some inevitable questions about how or why these things were made and where one might buy them. Bowser Jr. also has a bedroom full of villain toys, and bedsheets to match.
I’m not so cheerless as to suggest that the merch is not part of the fun of video-game or toy-based movies for its younger audiences. But when inserted into the fabric of the movie itself, into the storylines, it’s distracting, taking you out of the escape of this wondrous dream world and back into the realities of late-stage capitalism.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” a Universal Pictures release in theaters Wednesday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for “rude humor, mild violence and action.” Running time: 98 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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