Review: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is an assault on the senses, and a colorful buffet of fan service

If there two things that are true about me, it's that I love animated movies and I love Nintendo. So I seem like the ideal customer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, or maybe I should say the ideal consumer. Because despite the word "movie" being right there in the title, the latest collaboration from Illumination and Nintendo feels less like a movie and more like a theme park ride, an uber-colorful, high-energy assault on the senses that takes fan service to heights hitherto unknown. It's an exhausting experience, but one that's fun enough to be worth a ride if you're a fan of the franchise. For the uninitiated, I imagine this would be a deeply unpleasant watch.

I don't remember a time in my life when I wasn't playing Mario games. Super Mario Bros. 3 was one of my first great video game loves, and one that lingers to this day. I've been with the franchise through every iteration, and the Galaxy games on Wii stand as some of my all-time favorites in the series. While The Super Mario Galaxy Movie pulls from every era of Mario (and even some other franchises), it does a nice job of really bringing that Galaxy magic to the big screen. Rosalina and the Lumas are wonderful additions to the roster of characters, and the way Mario and friends fly through space and jump across planetoids has that fun, fluid, gravity-defying wow factor that made those games so great.

And, of course, the Galaxy games have some of the best music in the series, and thankfully, that's well-represented on the big screen. While the first animated Mario outing sometimes pulled out pop songs for certain sequences, Galaxy happily leans into the wealth of great music that's already built into the series. There are so many thrilling orchestrations, fun melodic Easter eggs, and soaring renditions of classic tunes -- this movie is as much a feast for the ears as it is for the eyes.

And yes, this must be Illumination's best-looking movie to date. It's so much fun to see so many worlds and characters come to life in such fine-looking form. This movie is bursting with energy, color, and movement. It really is a thrill ride, with some fun breaks from the CG animation at key points to keep things extra lively. I especially love the 2-D animation used during Fox's intro, and the occasional dips into classic video game graphical styles in a couple key sequences.

And that ride rarely lags. Which is a kind of double-edged sword, in this case. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is at its best during its set piece moments, of which there are many. The film opens in fine style with a rousing introduction to Roaslina, where she shows off her cosmic powers protecting her adorable brood of Lumas. From there, we go to many worlds with many combinations of characters who encounter all sorts of enemies familiar and obscure. As well-versed as I am in the various Mario worlds, there were even some background cameos I couldn't place. Others, like Wart and his fellow Super Mario Bros. 2 baddies, were not only recognizable, but long-awaited. Usually, only Birdo gets in on the fun.

The story involves Mario and friends setting off to rescue Rosalina from Bowser Jr., who wants to conquer the universe to win his father's approval. Along the way, they join forces with some new friends, travel to exotic worlds, and even team up with Bowser. 

While the action scenes are a lot of fun, they are so frequent that the film ends up being quite exhausting. It's a massive buffet of empty calories, a brutal sugar rush that had me smiling at first, but had me longing for the credits to roll by the time things were said and done. What's worse, when the film slows its pace at all for a character or story moment, they almost always fall flat. There are some odd dynamics and reveals, and none of it has any meat to it because these characters are paper-thin. It's the un-perfect marriage of Illumination, whose movies tend to be a bunch of noise and fluff, and the Mario franchise, which is not known for having deep or compelling stories (RPG spinoffs notwithstanding). 

As frustrating and tiring a watch as this movie is, the thing is, it's still Nintendo. I like spending time with these characters and in these worlds. Yoshi is an incredible addition to the franchise, and I love the way he's depicted. Seeing all of the power-ups in action is so much fun. And, unlike the first film, where so many of the Easter eggs were background elements, here, a lot of them feel more woven into the plot and put in the spotlight. Maybe because the characters and world have already been established, this feels like a movie that's more firmly rooted in being a Mario movie. For better or for worse, depending on your point of view.

And I imagine that, for some people, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie represents a dangerous trend in our movies (and media at large) toward mining nostalgia, servicing fans to the point of bursting, presenting a parade of identifiable characters/places/items instead of telling a story, etc. etc. And that's a valid criticism, though I find this instance as close to harmless as possible. Because ultimately, no other company has the deep wealth of IP to exploit in this way as Nintendo, so no other company can churn out junk food like this. Well, except Disney, and they're regularly coasting on nostalgia by churning out much more cynical, ugly, joyless products. Have you seen that live-action Moana trailer? At least here, there's a core of love for the source material, and the end product feels celebratory even in its threadbare-ness. I think that deserves at least a half-hearted "Woo-hoo!"