Super Mario Bros warded off the curse. Video games have been mistreated for decades on the big screen, mustachioed plumbers themselves paid the Price in the 90s with a live-action version that looked like night terrors. Faced with these Nanardesque monuments, the illumination film had everything GOTY. Three years later, this sequel is expected around the corner.
This time, Super Mario Galaxy the film intends to bring back to the forefront a slew of other iconic Nintendo characters, from Yoshi to Harmonie via Fox McCloud. This part has the difficult task of adapting the UFO of the license while the contours of a dense cinematographic universe seem to be taking shape. But between fan service and a quality narrative and visual proposition, there can sometimes be a gulf. Has Nintendo been able to find the balance?
New players
Exit the Mushroom Kingdom, and welcome to the Milky Way. Taking games as inspiration Super Mario Galaxythis second part focuses its story on Princess Peach and her origins. A clear path according to the direction taken by Super Mario Bros. the movie. Yes, Illumination is a direct sequel but changes its approach a little.
It is while traveling from planet to planet, to the rescue of His Majesty, that Mario and Luigi will once again have to abandon pipes and monkey wrenches in favor of power-ups and protruding motorcycles, in an adventure which drastically changes scale.
Super Mario Galaxy leaves with a heavy legacy to carry. That of one of the most popular video game titles, both for its narration and its innovative gameplay. On this first part, this sequel is doing quite well. It deepens the message about family and focuses more on the story of the secondary characters.
Mario and Luigi give up their place as protagonists to give their comrades a real opportunity to shine. Everyone takes their turn! While this choice may be surprising, it is in line with the new ambitions of the saga: to build a rich cinematographic universe. Nintendo’s franchise is colossal. Illumination has barely explored it.
Side quests
With its new character roster, Super Mario Galaxy highlights family models hitherto little explored in Nintendo lore. At this level, the film brings a welcome dimension compared to the games which have always more or less complied with the same actantial pattern over the opus.
As Arcane was for League of Legendsproduction contributes to the creation and not only to the transposition of the universe. The film gives itself the right to fill in gray areas, to reinvent and give meaning to a mythology that has become perhaps too familiar over the years. The result is there. We find ourselves caught up in the more introspective aspect of Super Mario Galaxyalthough the whole thing sometimes lacks coherence. Some subplots are not fully exploited, the film does not take advantage of all its potential.
If the film lays the foundations of a story that is stronger and more assertive than that of the games, this part does not revolutionize the archetypes that we already know either. Risk-taking is almost non-existent in the background and the development of the characters, as interesting as it is, is kept in an orbit of safety.
Adventure in 200 cc
The first film Mario was perfectly imperfect in its abundance of references. The cameos were numerous, as were the visual and narrative winks, sometimes leaving a taste of excess in the mouths of certain spectators. It is clear that this feeling is indeed back with Super Mario Galaxy which never ceases to overwhelm us, flirting dangerously with pure and simple saturation.
If the start is rather quiet, once the race starts, it is absolutely impossible to follow everything as we find ourselves bombarded with scenes overflowing with energy, light, colors, music and characters. The film connects them at the speed of light. The feeling of pleasure is still there but the overall readability of the work is necessarily impacted.
Super Mario Galaxy succumbs to the format that more and more films are adopting, designed for shocking sequences to post on social networks. We therefore find ourselves with a galaxy of capsule moments, which revolve around a core just convincing enough not to disgust us. Never really crossed, the limit remains close. Designed to appeal to a young audience, addicted to vertical videos and dopamine shots, the feature film will undoubtedly lose its more mature audience along the way.
The soundscape also adds to the overdose cocktail. Quiet moments are systematically filled with unnaturally epic music, completely saturating the emotional gauge and making the truly important sequences much less impactful than they should be. The iconic melodies of the games are cooked with all the sauces, and if at the start of the film we have great admiration for the effects, faithful and nostalgic, these added sugars make Super Mario Galaxy a dish not recommended for diabetics… (and epileptics).
The reassuring point is that Nintendo does not seek to bury us, in addition to all these sensory stimuli, under a mass of external references. The cameos can be counted on the fingers of one hand and that’s perfect. The major concern remains the overbidding within the franchise itself Mario who is really struggling to contain himself. The screenwriters also overindulged in sugar.
NCU: the Nintendo Cinematic Universe
Even if it means being flooded with images, Illumination ensures that they are at least pleasing to the eye. Visually, it is almost flawless for Super Mario Galaxywhich completely imbues itself with the aesthetics of the games while enhancing the textures, the play of light and the settings of the epic. The presence of Fox McCloud brings additional challenges to the teams, who not only succeed in playing with the details of the fur, but also offer a change of aesthetic (the details of which we will not mention here) which demonstrates true know-how in terms of animation.
Obviously, Nintendo is keeping its cartridges to continue building what looks more and more like a cinematic empire. Today we are still missing certain key figures to be fully satisfied, but the future is full of promise. We also recall that given the richness of the video game license, very few opuses have been represented despite two films extremely dense in references: there therefore remains considerable room for progress.
There’s something for everyone, but especially the youngest, who will recognize titles released less than ten years ago, while older spectators will appreciate the overall scope of the project more than each of its details.
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