If you enter the theater with the knowledge that Donald Glover’s interpretation of Yoshi is a chipmunk-frequency, puppylike dinosaur, the movie ticket almost certainly pays for itself. The problem is that the film sacrifices high-quality, meaningful storytelling for the quantity of one-dimensional theatrics.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” arrives with the full weight of fandom hype and expectation, especially in the video game movie genre, which has received largely negative press over the last few decades for empty attempts at compressing extensive lore into a sub-120-minute package.

The sophomore film adaptation of Nintendo’s beloved plumber is a more confident and considerably funnier film than its predecessor, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023), and for stretches of the movie’s runtime, that is enough to hold its head above water.

But the film’s persistent reluctance to stray from simple and surface-level fan service in favor of nuanced character or thematic development ultimately leaves it feeling like a missed opportunity cloaked in vibrant animation.

The story is straightforward enough: Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), Yoshi (Glover) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) travel the galaxy in search of Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), Peach’s sister, while a seemingly rehabilitated Bowser (Jack Black) attempts to reconnect with his estranged son, Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie).

Events unfold with the kind of frictionless convenience that suggests a screenplay more concerned with hitting boilerplate story beats than telling an authentic narrative.

Nowhere is this rushed pacing more apparent than in the film’s treatment of Peach’s subplot about feeling disconnected from the Mushroom People and yearning to understand her ancestry. However, this conflict is immediately resolved once she learns Rosalina is her sister.

Had the story allowed Peach to consciously accept the ambiguity of her origins and find peace in the love she already has with her found family — Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and the Toads — it might have delivered a more resonant emotional resolution. Instead, the potential of this narrative thread is abandoned for a duller resolution.

Unfortunately, the other protagonists also suffer from shallow depth. Mario’s insecurity — expressed in a throwaway line about why a princess would never take romantic interest in a plumber — is introduced but never developed in interactions between him and Peach.

Mario’s emotional subplot finds an unsatisfying conclusion in the film’s final sequence when Peach gives him a quick peck on the cheek, seemingly confirming a reciprocation of feelings that he never expressed. 

On the other hand, Luigi’s stated desire to not be defined by his fearfulness in an early scene disappears almost immediately. During the battle sequences, where our heroes face the Bowsers’ murderous wrath to save Rosalina — and when Luigi’s anxieties would logically be most acute — he behaves with the same bravado and cockiness displayed by his brother. 

These protagonists read as literal video game characters who exist as blank slate heroes designed to execute actions. While this model is efficient in interactive media, it becomes limiting in the cinematic context, where audiences are most engaged by characters with their own inner worlds. 

Bowser is the film’s most interesting character study, but his underdeveloped storyline is what makes the screenplay’s timidity most frustrating. Bowser is initially reintroduced as a reformed villain, and the tension between Luigi’s belief in him and Mario’s persistent distrust of Bowser’s newfound wholesomeness provides substantive entertainment.

The decision to abruptly reverse this arc in the third act, returning Bowser to his villainous baseline, is a poor example of the reset button trope in which writers revert their characters to their original personalities. 

The reveal of Bowser’s optimistic, caring temperament was successful because it subverted the audience’s expectations of the villain. Unfortunately, this moral reset undercuts the film’s own best instincts to carve out new character nuance.

The redemption of a classic antagonist is a powerful message, particularly for younger audiences, teaching them the capacity for individuals to change. By undoing Bowser’s arc, the film sacrifices a genuinely valuable lesson for the sake of franchise continuity. 

Credit must be given, however, to the considerable comedy mined from the subplot involving Bowser’s failures as an absentee father. It works, and is among the screenplay’s more inventive choices.

The central conflict — a villain seeking to destroy the galaxy — is a dime a dozen, and as standard as big-budget family entertainment gets. For the target demographic of young children, this will almost certainly suffice.

Still, the most enduring stories in the family genre are almost always those that resonate with both adults and children alike — like any pre-2012 DreamWorks animated movie. 

Nevertheless, despite its narrative failures, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is an incredibly fun ride. The animation is spectacular, the humor lands with surprising frequency and Yoshi’s weaponised adorableness could charm the skepticism out of the most disgruntled viewer. The film’s concern with spectacle over depth makes it equal parts entertaining and forgettable.