Before helming Illumination’s Mario movies, directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic headed the Teen Titans Go! series famous for its hyperactive sensibilities and absurdist comic impulses. Anything was possible on this show, from an extended gag about asking Zack Snyder for “the Snyder cut” to whatever was going on in this gag involving projectile streaks of milk. When the series graduated to cinemas in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, the duo’s trademark go-go-go gags and wall-to-wall noise followed. While 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie dialed that back for a more straightforward, reverential take on familiar pop culture icons, success has given them more leeway. So here in 2026, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie especially revives their frenzied pacing and willingness to throw everything at the wall. This is one manic motion picture, often more exhausting than reaching the comic heights of “Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life.”

Matthew Fogel’s script operates at warp speed to introduce three new characters, including the villainous Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), and allies Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson), and Yoshi (Donald Glover) within the first five minutes. The Marios, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), will need all the help they can get as Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina in a bid to free his captured father, Bowser (Jack Black).

Initially, Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) sets out with Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) to resolve this matter, leaving the Mario brothers in charge. Soon, though, they too abandon Mushroom Kingdom and shrunken Bowser management for the call of the cosmos. Dangerous, universe-threatening times are afoot. They won’t stay relegated to the sidelines.

Emily St. James once astutely observed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reduced that galaxy far, far away’s inhabitants to zoo exhibits. The impact of a fleeting glimpse of a character like Wicket is a momentary wave and little more. While not nearly as dismal as Skywalker, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie possesses a similar fugacious, surface-level approach to its iconography. Gigantic bumblebees, towering cacti, bouncing golden-eared rabbits, and even a gaggle of Pikmin briefly appear on-screen. What once delighted fans on classic Nintendo games is reduced to nostalgia-eliciting background décor.

This is not to say that simply giving Mouser a rich character arc would make The Super Mario Galaxy Movie a masterpiece. However, the blisteringly fast pace gives the nods to yesteryear little time for meaning or depth. Sometimes the proceedings blur into a noisier iteration of a Mario sticker book. It becomes little more than a flat rendering of familiar Mushroom Kingdom faces and objects. Counting so heavily on the audience’s memories of playing Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Odyssey only gets a movie so far. What good is referencing the past if you’re not using it to build something new and exciting in the present?  

At least The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has the good sense to wrap its barrage of references in colorful packaging. After its predecessor spent too much screentime in New York City and the more uninspired corners of the Mushroom Kingdom, Horvath and Jelenic spotlight an avalanche of stylized, colorful cosmic realms. The best of these new locales is easily a 360-degree casino that defies gravity. Koopa gamblers and card dealers litter the ceilings, walls, floor, and every inch of this slot machine-filled domicile. All those glistening hues and bustling details make for a visual treat.

Equally entertaining are brief digressions where the feature abandons straightforward CG animation. A supporting character’s backstory, for instance, is told through anime-inspired hand-drawn animation. A Bowser/Bowser Jr. flashback deploys ramshackle hand puppets. The climax makes time for Mario and Peach to evoke their earliest video game shenanigans by going 8-bit. These departures from Galaxy’s default visual sensibilities are a welcome breather from a movie too enamored with giving audiences the familiar.

The familiar weighs especially heavily on the action beats, as in the recurring use of slow motion. These moments don’t evoke the movie’s video game roots as much as ape a slew of recent American superhero movies. Disposable explosion-laden skirmishes undermine even the fun moments like Peach’s confrontation with King Wart’s (Luis Guzmán) army. The occasionally enjoyably loopy finale never quite reaches proper unhinged or uber-creative heights, either. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie desperately needed more of Teen Titans Go!’s unpredictability.

The film’s tug-of-war between monotony and entertainment extends even to the voice cast. Too many of these performers—namely Pratt and Taylor-Joy—sound distractingly like themselves. They never disappear enough to make you forget about the famous name on the poster. Credit where credit is due, though, Day and Black remain terrific as Luigi and Bowser. Black especially epitomizes the kind of artistry these films could reach, delivering a Bowser who feels in line with his video game incarnations while still uniquely the actor’s own.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie frequently struggles to offer more than a ceaseless assault of pretty Easter Eggs and nostalgia pops. Perhaps that’s enough for some moviegoers yearning to see their childhood on the silver screen. However, after the last power-up deploys and the credits roll, it’s hard to shake how little it had to offer. It turns out “made for the fans” doesn’t mean “good”.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie shouts “here we go!” in theatres everywhere starting April 1.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Trailer: