by Evan Barkman
While I was home last weekend, I saw the newly released Super Mario Galaxy movie. Although the movie came out less than two weeks ago to many theaters across the country, there’s been quite a lot of criticism both from critics and audiences. While I enjoyed watching the movie, I have some positive and negative thoughts about the movie and how it’s presented.
First, I think that the animation is very impressive. Specifically, I enjoyed how each character’s movements were tailored for that character. Each movement in the animation feels like the animators knew the source material well and were able to adapt it nicely. I also enjoyed the amount of setpieces and characters across the whole movie. There was a lot of variety both in the locations and in the sequence that helped to distinguish Super Mario Galaxy from Super Mario Bros., but it also improved the flow between scenes.
While the overall looks of the movie were impressive, I thought the plot had some elements that could’ve been improved. Without spoiling the entire movie, I think the pacing is much too fast and is trying to do too many things at once. While I liked the cohesion in the animation, the cohesion in the plot felt weird. There were multiple cases where interesting ideas, character interactions, and setpieces weren’t used to their fullest. Specifically, there’s a section in the first half of the movie that you’d believe would hold more importance, but the idea ends up barely being used despite how important it seemed.
Another part of the movie that I thought was interesting was the choice to not follow the original source material. While Super Mario Bros. didn’t have a direct source, Super Mario Galaxy had a game to go off. While the movie does that for the locations and general theming, the plot does its own thing based off some of the ideas from that game. While it doesn’t copy the plot from the game, many elements such as characters, locations, and concepts from other Mario games and Nintendo franchises are seen in the movie. These don’t add a lot to the story, but I think the confusion in adapting the source material and the bloat of unrelated things makes the story feel too fast and disconnected.
Overall, Super Mario Galaxy was enjoyable. However, you should only see it if you really want to. It’s fun and has good vibes, but if you want something that gives you more to chew on in terms of narrative and characters, then sitting this movie out isn’t a bad idea
