Join Nintendo in celebrating Super Mario's 40th anniversary by watching their newest film
Warning: this review contains mild spoilers
September (October for us in the west) 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of the Super Mario video games. Illumination Entertainment and Nintendo have teamed up once again to celebrate with the brand-new The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, directed by Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic and Pierre Leduc. The sequel was written by Matthew Fogel and features the returning voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser and Keegan-Michael Key as Toad.
Loosely tied to the 2010 video game counterpart — and I mean very loosely, because the entire cast is in space for maybe four minutes total — Horvath and Jelenic were able to perfectly blend 40 years worth of iconic video games into an action-packed adventure.
I enjoyed the first The Super Mario Bros. Movie, so much so that I ended up pre-ordering a special edition of the DVD and Blu-ray that came in the shape of the Super Star. I pretty much had the same set of expectations going into this movie and I was not at all disappointed.
The movie opens with the typical “once upon a time” scene, read by newcomer Rosalina (Brie Larson), which ends up being quickly recapped by the surrounding Lumas, the star objects that Rosalina considers to be her children, of the events that happened in the first movie. Rapidly, we’re thrown into an action sequence that introduces the main antagonist of the film, Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie). Princess Rosalina gets captured by Bowser Jr., thus leading the main characters on a mission to rescue her.
Knowing how Rosalina typically sounds in the video games, I was so happy to hear that Larson was going to be her voice actress. Larson has been known to be a huge Nintendo fan, so seeing someone on the cast that shares the same enthusiasm and passion as the creators of Mario makes this role so much more special. Bowser Jr., on the other hand, did not do it for me. Safdie has some funny quips and did a good job at embodying Bowser Jr., but the character is supposed to be a young child. To hear him have the voice of an older adult man distracted me the entire film. I couldn’t take Safdie seriously hearing him say things like “Papa.”
Shortly after, we’re introduced to Yoshi (Donald Glover). Throughout the film, Yoshi does exactly what he needs to do: be cute and be funny. I definitely let out a chuckle here and there thinking about how Glover got paid to say the character’s single phrase, “Yoshi.” As a character, he didn’t offer much to the story, but they did add a nod to the game Yoshi’s Island, which is one of my favorite games of all time, so I’ll forgive Illumination and Nintendo.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie moves very fast. So fast that I think I need to watch it again to catch all the references and easter eggs thrown at me. There’s not enough runtime to properly introduce any of the new characters, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s a bad thing. Mario is a very popular franchise (also called intellectual property, or IP), so the expectation is that people are already aware of who most of these characters are. Mario and Luigi themselves didn’t have the largest impact on the movie. The focus wasn’t solely on one character; instead each of them seemed to have their own arc — similar to how the games tell their story.
The biggest standout of this film was the music. Nintendo is known for making very recognizable scores for their games, but hearing a newly orchestrated rendition of the Super Mario Galaxy theme gave me goosebumps. Brian Tyler, returning composer from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, along with score consultant Koji Kondo, one of the more iconic figures to come out of Nintendo and the creator of the Super Mario Bros. theme song, once again produced a masterpiece of a soundtrack.
The movie has a runtime of around 90 minutes, which can seem short when audiences are used to the standard being almost three hours, but it felt perfect to me. Extra time could’ve been used to expand on the storyline of Princesses Peach and Rosalina (especially because the storybook is so important in the Mario Galaxy game) and their sisterhood instead of the very short scene that showed Rosalina throwing baby Peach into a pipe to save her from unnamed “evil forces.”
Surprisingly enough, Princess Peach had a lot of screentime. She has an entire fight scene in the Question Mark Block Casino, we get a little bit of her origin story, and she rides in space with another newcomer (and probably my most hyped character), Fox McCloud of Star Fox (Glen Powell).
I had no opinion of Powell before this, mainly because I haven’t seen a single film of his, but wow, did he blow me away. I know Powell has a good voice and is pretty witty, but I wasn’t sure how that personality was going to translate into Fox. Fox is normally super serious and just wants to get the job done, but Powell brought a refreshing new personality to him — who is, in my humble opinion, the most slept-on character Nintendo has. All of his scenes were some of the most action-packed and genuinely funny. This is a movie review, so I won’t go into how amazing it is to see so many young kids get introduced into the Star Fox franchise — mainly because I don’t want to get my hopes up since the IP desperately needs a revival. If Fox having more screentime than Rosalina leads to a new game, then I’m going to need Rosalina fans to take one for the team (I’m begging you).
Overall, the movie was fun! The limited edition popcorn buckets were adorably charming. Filling the inside of the egg with popcorn makes for a perfect use of Yoshi’s egg, and luckily I was able to grab one for myself. I enjoyed this film way more than the previous one. Bowser’s character had a funny arc, and the animation is always so good. I accidentally bought my tickets in 3D, so that was a fun surprise. I was happy to see some of the issues that I had with the first movie didn’t continue in this sequel (I’m looking at you, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong). Nintendo is cooking up something big, and I’m expecting a ton more titles to get their own big screen debut following the success of these films. Seeing the Mario movies do well is filling me with hope for The Legend of Zelda movie that is set to come out in 2027. If you grew up with Nintendo or have an hour-and-a-half to waste, go check out The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
My rating: 4/5 stars
Header Image by Yodaris Frausto. Fourteen Cents Banner by Alex Carrasquillo
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