That kind of silly-reference idea—or, better yet, something else riffing more cleverly on Nintendo lore—might be reasonably expected from directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. After all, their pre-Mario project is the long-running animated series Teen Titans Go!, which manages to absolutely savage the DC characters it’s based on, yet do so with such deranged zeal that it becomes not only a loving tribute to its source material, but a genuine interpretation of it. That show may skew a little more sophisticated than this Illumination franchise is aiming, but Teen Titans Go! also gets plenty of six-year-olds super hyped; it’s tantalizingly easy to imagine versions of Mario and Luigi delivering those kinds of manic laughs and references without sacrificing their family appeal.
Instead, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie settles for moments of visual inspiration that replicate the little rushes of opening up new worlds in one of the games, while letting almost every character stagnate into bland affability. The bright side of the sequel is that with its predecessor’s exposition thankfully out of the way, it can get to both the visual stuff and the blandness faster than before, wasting no time introducing adorable new vessels for moving long-running Nintendo merchandise. When another princess (Princess Rosalina, voiced by Brie Larson) from another world is kidnapped by another aggro dragon-turtle (Bowser Jr., voiced by Benny Safdie), Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) head off to save her, leaving Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) in charge of Peach’s Mushroom Kingdom. The brothers have back-up: They’ve acquired a new friend in the form of mini-dinosaur Yoshi (Donald Glover, supposedly; you won’t hear so much of a note of familiarity in his chirps and squeaks) and have even made tentative in-roads with a shrunken and allegedly chastened Bowser (Jack Black), the villain of the previous film.
Other Nintendo-familiar faces appear (even if they barely have faces—are those Pikmin in one scene?!). Minor ones substitute for sight gags. You can tell when a more important one has entered because a pre-established character will mention how cute or cool they are, in case children forget to want the toys or hope for a spinoff. (The movie’s self-boosting recalls the shameless moment in Jurassic World where a kid unimpressed with resurrected dinosaurs inexplicably thinks Chris Pratt on a motorcycle is the coolest thing he’s ever seen. At least Yoshi is actually cute.)
For a little while, it seems like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will operate by the rules of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (like Teen Titans Go!, a property combining little-kid appeal with good writing), where enemies are frequently converted into friends rather than drawn into physical conflict. Specifically, Black’s Bowser turns out to be just as delightful in his attempts to work on himself and go straight as he is as a Mario nemesis. The movie sets up a genuinely interesting conflict when his neglected son turns up and Bowser doesn’t have the heart to dissuade him from the evil scheme he’s concocted to impress his dad. But The Super Mario Galaxy Movie doesn’t really have the patience for character-based conflict, or plotting more complicated (or motivated) than groups of characters showing up to different planets on cue. To wit: Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi eventually try to catch up with Peach and Toad in the further reaches of the galaxy, because… eh, some stuff happens and they might as well. Then there are some battles that look like the battles from a bunch of different games.
As ever, the visual universe of Mario outclasses the house style of Illumination, the Minions-dominated studio that handles the animation, and there are some aforementioned sustained passages of visual splendor. On a bigger scale, there’s a vast casino, Inception-bent at right angles so the gaming can continue along the walls and ceiling. On the smaller end, there’s a delightful Yoshi adventure in our world that blends continuous motion from the cheerful dino with repeatedly cut-shifted backgrounds. These bits of eye candy are pacifiers for any parents disinclined to applaud power-ups like they’re long-lost friends. (Some of them happily will, of course.) Kids, meanwhile, will probably have a pretty good time. But don’t be surprised if some of the more creative young audience members start thinking about weirder or funnier possibilities for these beloved characters, to fill the vacuum formed by the movie’s odd combination of respect for its IP world and condescension about what little is needed to populate it.
Directors: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Writer: Matthew Fogel
Starring: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Benny Safdie, Brie Larson, Keegan Michael-Key
Release Date: April 1, 2026