This review contains major spoilers for the movie, if you haven’t seen it, we invite you to go and see it first, then you can come back here.
If you grew up with a Wii Remote in your hands, tilting it in every direction trying to keep Mario alive on some tiny floating planet, walking into this movie feels like coming home. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, released in theaters on April 1, is the sequel nobody was going to miss, and it delivers exactly the kind of galactic adventure that made the original game one of the most beloved Nintendo titles of all time.
The film is directed again by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, written by Matthew Fogel, and produced by Illumination and Nintendo. Brian Tyler returns to compose the score, performed this time by a full 70-piece orchestra, with arrangements drawn from the two Super Mario Galaxy games and other entries in the Mario series. From the very first notes, the movie announces itself loudly and clearly: this is not just a cash grab sequel. This one means business.
A story about family, stars, and a very bratty kid
Life in the Mushroom Kingdom starts out colorful and sunny. Mario and Luigi are riding dirt bikes and keeping peace across the land. That changes fast. Bowser, defeated and shrunken at the end of the first film, is now held in miniature captivity while his son, Bowser Jr., shows up with a clear mission: free his father and restore the family name.
His target is Princess Rosalina, the Mother of the Stars. If Bowser Jr. can harness her cosmic power, he can do anything, including blow up the entire galaxy. He kidnaps her while she is reading bedtime stories to her Lumas, those tiny raindrop-shaped star creatures she calls her children, and just like that, the stakes go galactic.
Rosalina, voiced by Brie Larson, is revealed to be the long-lost older sister of Princess Peach, a departure from the games, but one that adds a real emotional layer to the story. The film runs two parallel storylines: Peach’s mission to rescue her sister, and a surprisingly tender arc following Bowser as he tries to reconnect with his son.
That second storyline is where the movie earns its heart. A miniaturized Bowser tells Mario, “I was a terrible father. He must hate me,” and Luigi, ever the most emotionally intelligent plumber in the room, sees something worth saving in him. Jack Black is once again the best thing in this franchise.
When Bowser looks at his son and says “your family is forever,” you feel it, even knowing full well these two are trying to destroy the universe five minutes later. A villain who loves his kid is always the most dangerous kind, and the most interesting one.
Easter eggs, Fox McCloud, and pure Nintendo joy
This is where the movie becomes a full celebration of everything Nintendo. There is a spaceport scene clearly inspired by the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars, packed wall to wall with Nintendo characters. Is that Samus Aran’s ship? It very well might be. The audience around me went absolutely wild.
Glen Powell joins as Fox McCloud, the mercenary space pilot from Nintendo’s Star Fox series, brought in by the heroes to fly them across the galaxy in his Arwing. The cameo works because it earns its place in the story, Fox McCloud doesn’t just show up to wave at the camera. He has a role, he has attitude, and Powell plays him like he was born for it. The movie packs as many video game references as humanly possible into 98 minutes. Is it exhausting? Not at all!
Yoshi joins the group early on through a fun introductory sequence, and his portrayal feels very close to how he appeared in the classic Super Mario World cartoons. Donald Glover voices him, which nobody asked for and somehow everyone ends up accepting completely. Charlie Day continues to bring genuine warmth to Luigi, and the dynamic between the brothers remains one of the most endearing things about this entire franchise.
One of the film’s most creative moments comes when Bowser Jr. watches Mario and Peach navigate his obstacles, but from his point of view, he sees them as characters in a classic 2D Nintendo side-scroller, complete with the original sound effects. It is the kind of idea that makes you grin from ear to ear and wish the whole movie leaned into that kind of creativity more often.
The animation is just pure love
The animation is stunning, vibrant, and inventive, clearly built by a team that deeply loves these games. The spherical galaxy environments from the 2007 Wii title are a visual playground, and the action sequences carry a kinetic energy that genuinely justifies the IMAX ticket price. Every character is expressive, every world pops with color, and the whole thing looks exactly like what a Mario game would look like with an unlimited budget and a world-class animation studio behind it.
The movie is not flawless. The pace rarely slows down enough for its best emotional moments to land the way they should, and both Bowser’s redemption arc and Peach’s found-family storyline deserved more room to breathe. Rosalina, despite driving the entire plot, spends too much of the film off-screen. For fans who grew up attached to her character in the game, that will sting a little.
But here is what matters: this is a movie made for the kid who collected every Power Star, for the teenager who cried reading Rosalina’s storybook on the Comet Observatory, for the adult who walks into the theater and the moment that orchestra plays, forgets every adult problem they walked in with. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie knows exactly who it is talking to. And it never once stops talking to them.
Did you catch The Super Mario Galaxy Movie this weekend? Tell us in the comments, did it bring back that childhood feeling, or did it leave you wanting more?