A film that works best when you stop expecting it to be a film
In the ongoing negotiation between art and commerce, Nintendo's second animated feature arrives as a lavish testament to what happens when a studio trusts spectacle more than story. Super Mario Galaxy: La Película offers its audience the comfort of recognition — a galaxy of references, a cascade of familiar faces — while quietly abandoning the harder work of giving those faces something meaningful to say. It is a film that knows its audience intimately and, in knowing them so well, perhaps asks too little of them.
- Where the first Mario film earned goodwill by giving even minor characters a reason to exist, the sequel attempts to adapt five games in ninety minutes and loses the thread almost immediately.
- Yoshi, Bowser, and Rosalina — characters with real dramatic potential — are either sidelined, contradicted, or nearly absent, leaving the film's emotional core hollow despite exceptional voice performances.
- Every scene seems engineered for a fifteen-second clip: the framing, the pacing, the humor all optimized for virality rather than the internal logic a story requires to breathe.
- A standout Star Fox sequence — charismatic, kinetic, almost self-contained — hints at what focused ambition could achieve, and quietly makes the case for a franchise Nintendo has long underserved.
- The film lands as premium theme park entertainment: dazzling to experience in the moment, difficult to defend as cinema once the lights come up.
La nueva película de Super Mario Galaxy llega como un monumento al fandom de Nintendo: animada con lujo y repleta de referencias que resonarán profundamente en cualquiera que haya crecido con sus juegos. Es también, casi perversamente, una película que deshace gran parte de lo que su predecesora hizo bien.
La primera entrega funcionó porque entendía algo fundamental: incluso una trama delgada puede sostenerse si los personajes que la habitan tienen dimensión. Esta secuela, dirigida nuevamente por Illumination, abandona ese principio por completo. Mario y Luigi se embarcan en una misión de rescate galáctica cuando Bowser Jr. secuestra a Rosalina, pero la ejecución es caótica. El problema central es la ambición sin disciplina: la película no se conforma con adaptar Super Mario Galaxy, sino que también quiere ser Odyssey, Super Mario Bros. 2, World, y un escaparate para Pikmin y Star Fox. Noventa minutos no pueden contener todo eso. Los eventos ocurren sin justificación, los personajes aparecen y desaparecen, y las motivaciones cambian a mitad de escena.
Yoshi es quien más sufre: llega con promesa y termina reducido a alivio cómico. Bowser, interpretado por Jack Black, pierde la amenaza que lo definía en la primera película cuando el guion intenta dotarlo de complejidad moral en su relación con Bowser Jr., sin comprometerse del todo con ninguna dirección. Rosalina, cuyo secuestro impulsa la trama, apenas aparece en pantalla.
Hay fortalezas genuinas. La secuencia de Star Fox es lo mejor de la película: un interludio espectacular con Glen Powell prestando voz a Fox McCloud con carisma real. Bowser Jr., interpretado por Benny Safdie, ofrece una de las actuaciones más matizadas del filme. La animación es excepcional y la banda sonora supera a la de la primera entrega.
Para los niños, la película ofrece estimulación constante. Para los devotos de Nintendo, es una cacería de Easter eggs de noventa minutos. Funciona si se la trata como entretenimiento de parque temático. Pero esa es también su confesión: una película que funciona mejor cuando se deja de esperar que sea una película ha tomado una decisión clara sobre lo que valora. La primera creía que los personajes importaban. Esta cree que el espectáculo y la nostalgia son suficientes. Para muchos espectadores, lo serán. Para quienes esperaban que las películas de Mario crecieran hacia algo con verdadera ambición narrativa, esto es un paso atrás envuelto en animación brillante.
The new Super Mario Galaxy film arrives as a monument to Nintendo fandom, lavishly animated and stuffed with references that will land perfectly for anyone who has spent time with the company's games. It is also, almost perversely, a film that undoes nearly everything its predecessor did right.
The first Mario movie, released to surprising commercial success, worked because it understood something basic: even a thin plot can hold if the characters inside it have dimension. Donkey Kong, Luigi, Peach, Toad—each got a moment to breathe, a small arc, a reason to care. The new film, directed again by Illumination, abandons that entirely. This time, Mario and Luigi find themselves drawn into a galaxy-spanning rescue mission when Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina. The setup is familiar. The execution is chaos.
The film's central problem is ambition without discipline. It is not content to adapt Super Mario Galaxy alone. It is also Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario World, and a showcase for Pikmin and Star Fox. Ninety minutes cannot hold all of this. In the scramble to fit everything in, narrative coherence collapses. Events happen without justification. Characters appear and vanish. Motivations shift mid-scene. The film seems less interested in telling a story than in generating what it clearly believes will become viral clips—moments designed for short-form video, with framing that prioritizes spectacle over sense.
Yoshi suffers most visibly. The character arrives with what seemed like promise of a real role, then is reduced to comic relief, deployed for dance sequences and exaggerated physical comedy that feels disconnected from anything happening around him. Donald Glover's voice work is better than the material deserves. Bowser, played by Jack Black, fares worse. In the first film, he was a genuine antagonist with weight. Here, the filmmakers attempt to give him moral complexity and a father-son arc with Bowser Jr., but the concept contradicts the character's essential nature. He is meant to be the villain. The film seems unsure whether to commit to that or soften him, and the uncertainty drains him of presence. Rosalina, the character whose kidnapping drives the plot, barely appears.
There are genuine strengths. The Star Fox sequence is the film's best work—a spectacular interlude that functions almost as a standalone trailer for a Star Fox film. Glen Powell's voice as Fox McCloud carries real charisma. If Nintendo can capitalize on this moment, it might finally give marketing momentum to a franchise that has historically struggled for visibility. Bowser Jr., voiced by Benny Safdie, is one of the film's best performances, layered and expressive in ways the games cannot quite achieve. The animation itself is exceptional. Illumination has reached a level of visual sophistication that few studios match. The soundtrack, drawing from Galaxy's rich library of music, surpasses the first film's score.
The film knows its audience and serves it. For children, it delivers constant stimulation and bright action. For Nintendo devotees, it is a 90-minute Easter egg hunt—nearly every frame contains a reference, a callback, a wink to someone who has played the games. In that sense, it works. It is entertaining if you approach it as theme park entertainment, a ride designed to trigger recognition and pleasure through familiarity rather than narrative.
But that is also its confession. A film that works best when you stop expecting it to be a film—when you treat it instead as an attraction, a spectacle, a product—has made a choice about what it values. The first movie, for all its simplicity, believed that character mattered. This one believes that spectacle and nostalgia are enough. For many viewers, they will be. For anyone hoping the Mario films might grow into something with genuine narrative ambition, this is a step backward, dressed up in excellent animation and buried under an avalanche of fan service.
Notable Quotes
The film seems less interested in telling a story than in generating what it clearly believes will become viral clips— The review
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does the first film work so much better, in your view, when both are essentially thin on plot?
Because the first one understood that thinness doesn't matter if the people inside the story have dimension. Mario, Luigi, Peach—they each got a moment to become real. This new one doesn't even try. It's too busy being everything at once.
You mention it's trying to be five different games at once. Couldn't that be exciting? A kind of greatest-hits approach?
Only if the film has a reason for each piece to be there. Instead, it feels like a checklist. Pikmin shows up. Star Fox shows up. They don't connect to anything. They're just... there. It's the difference between a medley and a song.
The animation is clearly excellent. Does that not count for something?
It counts for a lot, actually. But beautiful wrapping around nothing is still nothing. The film looks like a dream. It plays like a highlight reel.
You seem frustrated with Bowser specifically. Why does his character matter so much?
Because he's the antagonist. The villain is supposed to have weight, to be the reason the hero's journey means something. Here they try to make him sympathetic, give him a redemption arc, but that contradicts what Bowser is. He's the Joker. You can't soften the Joker and expect him to still be interesting.
What about the Star Fox sequence? You called it the best part.
It's the only moment where the film seems to know what it's doing. It's a perfect trailer for a Star Fox film. Glen Powell brings real presence. It makes you want to see that movie, not this one.
So who is this film actually for?
Children who need constant stimulation, and Nintendo fans who will watch anything with the logo on it. Both groups will be satisfied. But if you're hoping for a film that's also a film—that tells a story with intention—you'll be disappointed.