“Hey Luigi! What’s up, Mario.”

I was a decent fan of the original Super Mario Bros. Movie from back a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think it was great or anything, but I do think that for a first attempt at a major feature-length Mario movie, both Nintendo and Illumination did a solid job. On the other hand, I definitely saw room for improvement, especially in the story department.

One of the strong suits of the first movie was its worldbuilding and how it introduced us to a world that we were already familiar with, just this time in a different form and medium. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie definitely continues that trend, with even more of an expansion, and was easily my favorite thing about this sequel. We get introduced to and see even more characters we all know and love (which there is a negative side to), which makes me excited for what’s in store with future sequels, despite the quality of this one as a whole. I am with everyone else in hoping for an eventual Super Smash Bros. movie.

Another thing that was similar here was the inclusion of a bunch of easter eggs. There are probably even more than there were before, with several little details as well as sound cues that definitely had me grinning with nostalgia from time to time. One thing to note, however, is that a lot of the references in this one are more from the modern games instead of the older ones.

The animation was also vastly improved from before, which really surprised me, as I thought the first was genuinely one of the better-looking 3D animated movies I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t say the “graphics” were necessarily better; it was the overall ambition of the animation in general that made it a step up in my opinion. Obviously, with it being titled The Super Mario “Galaxy” Movie, one would expect to see the vibrant visuals and feel of the Galaxy games, and that was absolutely the case. The colors pop even more, and the locations are a lot more interesting.

As far as the story goes, yeah, unfortunately, it’s not an improvement over the first like I was hoping. Not only is it shallow like it was before, relying heavily on nostalgia, but it’s actually significantly worse on a narrative level. The first movie had a clear goal, which was to stop Bowser, while this movie felt like it was quite literally all over the place. It had a very “episodic” feel to it, where it never seemed like there was a clear end in sight, as characters just kept going to different and random locations. It made the movie feel bloated and overstuffed, whereas the first felt like a fun and quick little adventure. It made it really hard to get attached to or care about anything that was going on.

One of the more interesting parts was definitely Bowser and Bowser Jr., but I felt like both were heavily wasted and underutilized. It gives a backstory to both of them, but never really goes beyond that, which was easily where the short runtime was felt the most. The third act and climactic showdown between both Bowsers and everyone else felt so anticlimactic, too, that it was honestly kind of funny.

As far as the other side characters go, they were also completely disappointing. Yoshi was really the only new character that had much of a screen presence, while other characters like Fox McCloud and Rosalina were either kind of just there for a cool easter egg or there because the plot needed them to be. They both had some good moments, but they really weren’t in the movie as much as I would have liked them to be.

Speaking of funny, I didn’t really find the humor here to be very effective at all. The first movie had me chuckling every once in a while, but this one had very kiddie-level humor for all of its jokes, to which none even came close to making me laugh. Some of the jokes were even a little bit eye-rolling.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie was definitely a dud and a big step down in my opinion. It felt like a lot less effort was put into it, which made it lack a lot of the charm of its predecessor. While I wasn’t bored, it wasn’t anything more than something to pass the time. What was once a movie I was pretty excited about is now a movie I will soon forget about.