‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ - one of the films of all time

By Cole Johnson Copy Editor Video game movies feel a lot like compilation albums. They offer a condensed experience of something we love dearly, but ultimately, it’s stripped of the passion and care that made it valuable, and I try to avoid them whenever possible. That said, they’re not going anywhere. The success of the “Sonic” movies kickstarted a trend that’s still going strong, and with “The Legend of Zelda” and “Street Fighter” on the horizon, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is a painfully hollow sign of things to come. It’s been demoralizing watching recycled properties systematically devour the mainstream film industry like the monster out of “The Thing.” At this point, any movie advertising a repurposed franchise is going to need miraculous prowess to convince me it’s worth the time. In the case of Illumination Entertainment, that expectation applies tenfold. Summing up this studio’s filmography as animated slop would probably be letting them off easy, but the proportion of effort they put into movies compared to the effort I’d need to adequately express my distaste for them would be hopelessly imbalanced. I refuse to be the one putting all the work into this relationship. The initial “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was textbook Illumination. It was a bland product that rode its way to a billion-dollar box office on the back of brand recognition. Needless to say, my expectations were not high going into “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” I expected another safe and forgettable watch, and as the film kicked off with music virtually indistinguishable from the pre-movie AMC ads, I knew not to get my hopes up. Right away, the fight scene between Princess Rosalina and Bowser Jr. puts Illumination’s lazy writing front and center. Let’s get this out of the way - Rosalina is a prop character. She exists to get captured to set up another generic rescue operation. With a budget of over $100 million, you’d think the studio would dream up something a little more inspired than “someone gets captured” again, but instead, one of the most anticipated characters is relegated to lying down uselessly in a box for much of the runtime. The defining princess of the Mario Galaxy games takes a backseat to cameo characters like Fox McCloud from the Star Fox game series. In a movie offering only fan service, his presence doesn’t carry a ton of weight, especially when it appears to have eaten up time that could’ve been spent on more essential characters. Like the previous movie, there are large-scale set pieces all over, but they have little impact on the overall procession of events. There’s the initial incident and the final confrontation, sandwiching a bloated collection of scenes cobbled together from shallow references. Performances range from average to well below. Chris Pratt as Mario is the obvious lowlight, showcasing a staggering black hole of charisma that makes the movie’s namesake feel like an afterthought. Donald Glover as Yoshi is a casting decision that borders on s**tposting, though it is funny he was called into the booth just to say “Yoshi” in various inflections. He brings nothing to the film beyond his name credit. It’s not all bad. The fight scenes are competent and occasionally interesting. The Nintendo character cameos were charming, even if it gave me the same uneasiness I felt watching every noteworthy franchise get stuffed into the cultural singularity of Fortnite. Ultimately, these moments of mild amusement do not make a good movie. This film breezes by without stakes, development, or emotion. The scene of Bowser’s hand-puppet show had more personality than the rest of the movie put together. Right before the movie began, one ad stood out to me in particular - “We come to AMC theaters to love, to cry, to laugh - to care.” I wish more people were aware of the irony of that statement coming from the company who killed off a Walking Dead character so they didn’t have to pay his actor an adult’s salary, but I digress. There’s value in great movies, obviously. There’s value in horrible movies, too - nothing brings me joy like a group viewing of a cinematic trainwreck. But movies like this that take no risks and say nothing are the worst of the bunch. There’s no love, no crying, and no laughter. I didn’t care. This is simply one of many impending feature-length advertisements. Barring some explosion of creativity from future sequels on the level of “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” this is the last Nintendo movie I’m going to see. Rating:D- Play the damn games.