‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ (2026) Review: Safe and Marketable Leads to a Mid Movie

Mario and company set out across the stars to save Princess Rosalina from Bowser’s malicious son, Bowser Jr.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie; Movie; Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic; Family, Adventure; PG; 1h 39m

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) is one of the most inoffensive movies you’ll see. However, the movie plays everything so safe it goes back around to being boring. Of course there’s a lot going on, from the rapid pace of the movie to the eye-catching visuals, but the story itself is rather dull.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this movie, as I don’t necessarily like The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) or a lot of Illumination’s work for that matter. However, I was surprised to find myself having fun, though an enjoyable experience doesn’t mean it was a quality movie. I believe it to be a fun popcorn flick, which would be fine if the movie wasn’t colorful marketing for a mega corporation.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie follows Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) as they embark on a journey to rescue the Watcher of the Stars, Rosalina (Brie Larson), from Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie). Along the way they’re accompanied by Yoshi (Donald Glover), Bowser (Jack Black), Toad (Keegen Micheal-Key), and (oddly enough) Fox McCloud (Glen Powell) from the video game franchise Star Fox.

Now, let’s address the elephant (or rather fox) in the room. I was already skeptical going into the film knowing that a character from a completely different franchise was going to be squeezed in, but I was not ready for how prevalent he was. In fact, I would even say he played as much of a role, if not more of a role, than Rosalina herself! As much as I love Fox (he is my Smash Bros main), he felt like a bizarre and intrusive addition to the film.

Speaking of bizarre decisions, this movie is full of them. The writing is all over the place which leads to character inconsistencies and a muddled plot. It feels like the writers care more about cramming in as many references to Nintendo properties as they can rather than creating a genuinely compelling story. The acting is pretty average, though I must say I was surprised to hear Donald Glover do such a spot on Yoshi impression (I really thought it was just voice lines taken from the game at first).

The animation is unfortunately wasted on a film like this. It’s upsetting that a movie with such a nothing plot has such gorgeous, detailed animation. From the textures to particle effects, it’s obvious there was a lot of care and consideration put into the visuals. I only wish the writing had a similar treatment.

The music choices were a lot better than the previous movie’s as I found the original soundtrack far more preferable than a tacked on popular 80s song. Although I don’t necessarily like the way almost every piece was amped up to be this extreme, intense cinematic version of the original song, I still think it worked better than adding random popular songs.

The characters in the film felt rather flat and didn’t have a lot of depth to them. I think the character that had the most depth was Bowser, as he was torn on being a supportive father but also caring about Mario and company. However, this gets thrown out the window within 5 minutes and he’s back to being bad again. It felt so out of character that I thought it was going to be a plot point, but no, they really did just reset him.

Some characters hardly have any development at all. We rarely see Rosalina in the Galaxy movie of all things, but are seeing a lot of Fox McCloud, who’s not even in the Mario franchise to begin with. The movie’s priorities are all over the place and you can see it in how the characters are just thrown into random situations that get quickly resolved.

As for the rhetoric of the film, it’s quite similar to its predecessor in that it focuses on family relations. Between the main conflict coming from Bowser Jr. wanting to impress his father and the revelation that Peach and Rosalina are sisters (which is rarely touched upon in the movie) to the Mario brothers themselves, the movie is about family at its core.

The movie’s rhetoric is clearly about the strength of family as one of the most pivotal scenes of the movie is where Peach and Rosalina use their powers together to save the latter from a death trap and end up breathing life into the dead planet they’re on. The strength of family bonds also ties into Mario and Luigi and how they need to work together to defeat Bowser and Bowser Jr., who have become stronger themselves through their mutual support.

Overall, I left the theaters having a fun time, but the movie still left a very corporate taste in my mouth. At its core, this movie is as soulful as the corporations behind it (which doesn’t have a lot of soul to begin with). Its ultimate goal was to promote the Super Mario Galaxy remastered games coming to the Switch 2 and maybe even the potential Star Fox game that’s rumored to be coming out this summer.

I would have to say the best part about this film were the striking, colorful visuals which heavily made up for the rather lackluster plot and poor writing decisions.

Rating: 6/10