Running time: 98 minutes. Rated PG (action, mild violence, and rude humor). In theaters.
In a perfect world, fed-up audiences would say, “Let’s-a-go see something else.”
Alas, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” the exhausting sequel to 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” will make $1 billion just like its awful predecessor did.
That which brings me agony is, unfortunately, hugely profitable.
Apparently it doesn’t matter that all Mario, Luigi and Peach do for a screeching hour and 40 minutes is partake in a tedious chain of overlong chase and fight scenes.
Who cares that the celebrity voice acting from the likes of Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan Michael-Key and Brie Larson is so flavorless, the actors somehow sound neither like their characters nor themselves?
Why harp on the barely-there, barely-comprehensible plot (you need the Rosetta Stone to decipher its Wikipedia page) in which Bowser Jr. aims to destroy a bunch of planets I think?
So what if someone named Princess Rosalina (Larson), who has no, um, traits, is inexplicably the mother to hundreds of talking celestial stars called Lumas? Why dwell on the feeble villainy of Baby Bowser (Benny Safdie), an annoying little rascal who kidnaps the princess to steal her magic?
Who are we to judge the lackluster quality of the galaxy’s many locales? A “Blade Runner”-like urban city, a Vegas casino castle and a beehive ruled over by an awkward giant queen are all dull and suffer from lethal monotony.
Why bother complaining that Mario (Pratt) and Luigi (Day) are cardboard heroes with no real drive beyond generic do-goodery? Even when they enter riding motorcycles through the desert, they’re Bore-ence of Arabia.
Here’s the thing: This migraine of a followup from co-directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic banks on audiences not minding that they’re being force-fed bottom-of-the-Donkey-Kong-barrel intellectual-property vomit to sell merch.
And it’s a pretty safe bet that viewers won’t, for they are kids and a curious subset of peculiar adults. A few grownups at my screening applauded the arrival of Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), a pilot who’s basically Han Solo with fur. Those people need professional help.
There is nothing to like or admire in this groaner galaxy. The movie has the unconfident, powder-sugar tone of a Disney direct-to-video release, like “The Lion King 1 ½,” paired with the overeager advertising of an internet popup.
That’s certainly why cuddly Yoshi’s here this time, voiced by Donald Glover according to the credits. The creators might as well have animated a price tag onto him.
Some Super Mario maniacs might call me unreasonable for demanding that a movie based on a video game about adventurous plumbers be something more substantial than a lazily dramatized video game about adventurous plumbers. But endearing characters and focused stories should be a given at an animated film.
“Super Mario Galaxy” hasn’t got any of that. Even Jack Black’s Bowser, an evil turtle who yells, “Mario! I was a terrible father!,” isn’t remotely funny this time.
At the end of the first movie, Peach downsized the evil shell dweller and trapped him in a doll’s house as punishment. His newly-mini status, portrait-painting hobby and efforts to restrain his volcanic temper are lame. Poor Black scores a Tenacious F.
None of my whining will make a dent in “Mario”’s box-office armor though.
You can all but hear it shouting, “It’s-a-me! Cash grab!”
