Super Mario Galaxy Film Slammed by Critics, Loved by Kids
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- The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called the Super Mario Galaxy film worse than AI, and Empire dubbed it a "humourless, hysterical trudge" — reviews harsher than those for the first Mario movie
- The author's children "truly loved" the bright, action-heavy sequel, a pattern the writer notes has played out before with the first film's wide gap between critic scores and audience ratings
- The sequel drops any plot thread from the first film and sends Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi (voiced by Donald Glover) chasing star princess Rosalina across the galaxy
- Jack Black's Bowser, a highlight of the first film, has been "disappointingly defanged," and Seth Rogen's Donkey Kong has been swapped out for "even more bored-sounding cameos"
- Fox McCloud's brief, narratively pointless appearance reads to the author as an advertisement for a coming Star Fox announcement rather than storytelling
- Nintendo has sold almost a billion Mario games over 40 years, a built-in audience the film assumes you already belong to before walking in
Why it matters: With a Mario franchise that has sold nearly a billion games across four decades, Nintendo can fill theaters regardless of what critics say — but the author's reading of the Fox McCloud cameo suggests the studio is starting to treat its films as stealth marketing for dormant IP like Star Fox, which risks turning a beloved character catalog into cross-promotional real estate.
