Rod and Karen review the latest entry in the Super Mario franchise, “The Super Mario Galaxy.” They also discuss movie trailers and your comments.
Spoiled Reviews: (Protected Content)
SMR 587: The Super Mario Galaxy
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One time i accidentally got tickets for the wrong theatre too, but it was on the other side of the country. I told the folks at AMC and they were able to hook me up and transfer the ticket at no cost. Wonder why you weren’t able to do that? Oh wait did you say Stubs member? Oh you not A-list? Oh my bad…have you ever seen the Chevy with the butterfly doors…
For me watching the Mario Galaxy movie was kind of like getting to eat too much of your favorite candy (jelly beans for me) – you’re enjoying it while you’re doing it, but afterwards you regret it and realize it probably wasn’t good for you. I am deep in the Mario lore and loved seeing all the references from 40 years of Super Mario games. But everything in the movie came so fast and with no exposition that it wouldn’t make sense to the casual viewer.
The first movie at least spent a minute explaining power ups and the mushroom kingdom, but this movie didn’t even bother with all the new things it throws at you. I was a little surprised at Rod’s complaints about Starfox being thrown in with no explanation, because he at least got the 30 second animated montage of who he was and where he came from. It was the bare minimum, but they at least handwaved away that his ship flew through a wormhole from another dimension.
I was disappointed by the movie marketing spoiling Fox’s cameo a week before the movie came out. No one was expecting Starfox to be in this movie so it would have been a nice surprise at least for the day 1 viewers. But on the other hand I guess marketing couldn’t waste a Glen Campbell cameo.
As a Starfox fan, the one thing this does give me hope for is that there will be a new Starfox game coming in 2027 or 2028. Seems like Starfox was mandated by Nintendo to be shoehorned in here just to remind us he exists. This is the same way Donkey Kong (redesigned to match the new Switch 2 game that had not been announced yet) and Kart racing were shoved into the middle of the previous Super Mario Bros movie.
The movie was a great showcase of beautiful animation bringing to life and mashing up lots of awesome Super Mario video game moments. But as a cohesive story it’s not great.
Glenn Powell I meant, not Glen Campbell!
So, here’s my verdict on Galaxy: It’s an overstuffed, overstimulating, high-octane Nintendo nostalgia thrill that mostly negates story for getting character X, Y & Z into the frame. Is that a sustainable device for storytelling? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy this film, even though it is a lot of fan service? Yep. Are critics being too harsh on this film? Yes & No, which is why I’m coming to this film, mostly, for what it was going to be & not give us this memorable, absorbing story. The directors of this film did better storytelling in the last film. Hell, themassively underrated Teen Titans Go To The Movies did a story better than Galaxy, but two Mario-Illumination films in & I’m mostly pleased by the results.
Sometimes, if you’re film can get by doing silly fan service shit, despite it not being good at the storytelling bits, I just don’t know what the problem is. Voice acting’s as good as the first film, it’s gorgeous from beginning to end & it’s needfully short. If this shit were two hours of this, then, yes, these niggas got a problem, but they know how to end. Probably won’t remember this for 2026, when the year wraps up for films in time for the Awards circuit & that’s ok.
I just remember laughing at Bowser Jr looking for his pops femur & just dying with laughter. Ah, dark humor, I love it!
Drat, wrong “your”, lol. My bad on the grammatical error. Carry on.