REVIEW:
The Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie was not very good. That’s unfortunate considering how much fun the first movie was. Making a sequel is never easy. You want to make your movie different from the first film, and yet you want to hold onto as much as you can of what made the first movie great, and what the fans loved. Now the best sequels of all time are the ones that veered in vastly different directions than the first movies, (Terminator 2, Aliens, The Godfather Part 2.) But those movies are one in a million. The fact is, the smart move is usually to do more of the same and give the fans a repeat of what they enjoyed. Super Mario Galaxy doesn’t do that.
At the very least, this movie should have had the same style and tone as the first film. That means the weird humor (Bowser’s “Peaches” song, the Blue Star character who was hilariously depressed and suicidal and yet loving every minute of it.) This movie doesn’t bring any of this back. The Blue Star makes a quick, one second cameo in the last moment of the movie, which is definitely not the same. Bowser’s song doesn’t even get played here (we just hear the chords once, briefly.) It’s like they’re afraid to embrace the things that people loved about that first movie.
Another strange example of omission is that there are no pop-hit songs here. No needle drops. In the first movie they were peppered in throughout the entire film. Songs like “I Need a Hero,” “Thunderstruck,” “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” “Take on Me,” and “Mr Blue Sky,” This sequel maybe has one song at best. And why? Did the studio say, “hey, we know we’re gonna make a ton of money, whether we have pop songs or not, so let’s cut some costs and just ditch those all together?” It’s absolutely ridiculous. And it’s not that any of those pop songs were great or creative and hadn’t been heard in other movies before (this isn’t a Guardians of the Galaxy level soundtrack we’re talking about here,) but c’mon. Those songs were a way to bridge parents a kids together, to allow kids to hear songs that maybe they hasn’t heard before, and also just added more fun to the whole experience.
Speaking of trying to save money, that’s my only guess for why Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong is nowhere to be found in this one. I suppose they would make the argument that the staple of these films is for each one to feature a different Nintendo character in a helpful, supporting role, which is why we get one voiced by Glen Powell here. I’m not buying it. Not when the first movie did do well, and was loved by so many. How about the kids whose favorite character was Donkey Kong? The same goes for the Blue Star. And the pop songs being kidding isn’t even about characters, it’s about tone. There’s just too much omitted from the first one, here in the sequel.
But it’s not all bad. This isn’t the Mine Craft movie. In fact, there are definitely some things that do work nicely here. One pleasant omission is that there’s not that much slow motion this time around. That was something which was over done in the first movie, and I’m happy to see it go. Another thing to like about this movie are the references. We get to see Bowser and King Wart (villains from the game Super Mario Bros 2,) but that’s just the start.
There are actually some really clever references to the games in this one. Two in particular that stand out above the rest. The first comes when Mario and Luigi are squashing problems and putting out fires in the Mushroom Kingdom and we see a board that is keeping track of all of their accomplishments. It looks just like the game board from Super Mario 3 with the flags rising up displaying Mario or Luigi’s initials whenever they succeed. The other great reference comes when Mario is fighting Bowser on a bridge over lava and Bowser is shooting fire from his mouth. Mario has to jump over Bowser and cut the bridge so it falls apart right under Bowser’s feet. All of this is directly from the very first video game. In fact, we even see the actual game on the screen, which is really meta.
But despite these cool references, there are still lots of problems. The movie wants to be too cute. For example, there are too many babies. We get baby versions of nearly every character. Mario and Luigi get turned into babies. We see Princess Peach as a baby. Bowser gets turned into a baby and stays that way for about three fourths of the movie. Even the villain, Bowser Junior, we see when he’s a little baby being read bedtime stories.
On top of that, there’s too much flip flopping with the villains. I love Bowser becoming good, and not turning on our heroes when he has the chance, (when he becomes big again,) but then later on he is tempted too much, and that Fast and the Furious move of the villain becoming a hero is thrown out the window. Okay, fine. He was tempted too much. It’s understandable. But then the other villain isn’t quite a villain either. He creates a monster that Mario than has to save him from. How about let the monster swallow up the guy who created him? This movie is too concerned with being friendly and sweet to have any real villains, or to let them die. Two movies down and neither villain has died yet. I guess that’s the territory we’re playing in with a kids movie, but boy have things changed. It used to be that even good guys could die in kids movies (Mufasa in the Lion King.)
The villain thing isn’t the big problem here. I mean at least they gave us a giant monster to fight at the end. The problem is a little too much going on (we already have the story of Bowser and his son, do we really need the story of Princess Peach and her sister too?) And way too many babies. It’s an okay movie, but not nearly as good as the first one.