The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Is Brutally Dividing Critics & Audiences On Rotten Tomatoes

The new Nintendo sequel is going bigger and cosmic, as Mario, Luigi, and Peach venture onto a galactic mission beyond the Mushroom Kingdom to face off against Bowser Jr. Unfortunately, despite several Super Mario callbacks to the video games and new players, it failed to impress critics, who found issues with the thin script, underdeveloped arcs for Mario and Rosalina, and overstuffed cast. Despite this hiccup, audiences are reacting differently.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a whopping 91% with over 1000 verified ratings. This is a huge difference from the critical score of 43%, where critics are more divided about the sequel. Despite the major division, it’s not the first time that the franchise has seen a polarizing reception between critics and audiences.

In fact, The Super Mario Bros. Movie also saw the two groups being totally split. However, the critical score was slightly higher for the 2023 original, which earned a 59%, while the audience score was a strong 95%.

In fact, The Super Mario Bros. Movie also saw the two groups being totally split. However, the critical score was slightly higher for the 2023 original, which earned a 59%, while the audience score was a strong 95%.

The split between critics and audiences was expected as nostalgia plays a key role. Alongside the returning characters in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, video game favorites like Yoshi and Rosalina finally made their on-screen debuts. Furthermore, a big standout has been the cuteness overload of Yoshi and the Luma stars. With even more action, the film also features Easter eggs and references to the video game, including Star Fox, the T. rex, and the Mario babies.

In addition, Rosalina and Peach’s true connection and the major character reveal in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie post-credits scene have ignited strong reactions on social media. The latter has, unfortunately, received some mixed responses online due to the character design, but it, nevertheless, hints at more new characters potentially joining the franchise in a third movie.

The audience excitement is already translating well commercially, as the follow-up has already earned $34.5 million, which set a record-best for an April Wednesday. It’d also outpaced the 2023 movie, which made $31.7 million. With the new numbers, the Galaxy movie is now projected to make as much as $186 million domestically, which would just be under the original movie’s $204 million. However, it will easily be the best of the year as the movie schedule gets closer to the summer releases.

Therefore, despite mixed to poor reviews of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Nintendo and Illumination may have secured their next big win for the franchise, and ultimately, audience opinion is what will prevail. Even the CinemaScore has led to an A-, which means moviegoers are generally enjoying the adaptation. As a result, it shouldn’t be long until the studio confirms that a third installment is in the works.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie sees the return of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, and Jackie Black in their roles, while the new additions include Brie Larson, Donald Glover, and Glen Powell. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic return as the directorial pair, while Matthew Fogel wrote the screenplay.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now playing in theaters.