pril 15, 2026 | Belen Ponce Leal | Lifestyle Editor
Content warning: this article contains minor spoilers for “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”
On April 1, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” was released in theaters, and I was lucky enough to be able to see it on its debut. The movie by Nintendo is based on the game of a similar title, Super Mario Galaxy, and is a sequel to the first movie, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The film was highly anticipated by fans as Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are extremely beloved in the fanbase and are often viewed as some of the top ten Mario games ever produced by Nintendo.
After the movie’s release, many have expressed their opinion of it, ranging from it being good, bad, peak, terrible and even claiming it’s political. I wanted to give my own take on the movie as both a Mario fan and someone who played the Galaxy games.
I am in no way a movie critic or high-brow Mario superfan. I’m just a girl who wanted to see a movie based on one of the games I played the most growing up. That being said, though, my rating is definitely not a 10/10.
The game, Super Mario Galaxy, was praised for its ability to provide stunning visuals of outer space, and I’m happy to report that the movie was very similar to the game in that sense. The stars and galaxies were absolutely stunning to view on the big screen. The biggest strength the movie had was its animation. It’s incredibly smooth and well done, the fight scenes in the movie being particularly impressive. The movie’s main villain, Bowser Jr., has an incredibly powerful paintbrush that can create living drawings out of thin air as well as engulf him in the paint to give him a crazy amount of strength.
The strongest parts of the movie for me were any scenes that had Yoshi in them, as well as the relationship between Bowser and his son. Yoshi, as a character, was an incredibly entertaining character to watch on screen. He is not only a very resourceful creature, but he’s funny and really stands out on the character roster as a loyal companion who also likes to mess around with his buddies.
Bowser Jr.’s motivation throughout the entire movie revolves around getting his imprisoned father out of the clutches of the Mario brothers, as well as creating a planet for both of them, something that Bowser promised his son when he was growing up. Their bond is incredibly heartwarming to watch. Even if Bowser is a bad guy, there is no doubt that he is a great father.
The biggest change of the movie from the game is that some of the character backgrounds have changed drastically, specifically Rosalina’s and Peach’s. While I won’t dig into these changes to avoid major spoilers, my main complaint is that I feel like they really rushed the character development of most of the characters, but in particular, Princess Peach.
In this movie, she finally discovers where she comes from and who her family is. However, the journey of her getting there doesn’t feel particularly satisfying. There isn’t a lot of meaningful, emotional turmoil, and what little there is feels extremely rushed. I thought the way that they revealed Peach’s past was a clever way to do it, but it just didn’t feel like it was something she fought for. Her backstory just seemed to be handed to her — quite literally — without any sort of depth given to her character.
Overall, I feel like the movie wasn’t as terrible as some have been saying online. I personally enjoyed it a lot and had fun watching it. I would rate it a 7/10. I would watch it again, it was really funny.
Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu
