The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

The Second Golden Age of Animation in the 1990s was not ushered in only by the use of computers, but by a recognition that cartoons could be for the whole family, with jokes and storytelling that adults would appreciate alongside the poppy antics for the kids. Weep, then, for its end. Illumination’s latest Nintendo collaboration, inspired by the fan-favourite Super Mario Galaxy game, offers the adults a few pings of nostalgia, but otherwise it’s a humourless, hysterical trudge.

There’s very little plot here, just a series of moments scavenged from multiple games that happen one after another. But let’s try to set the scene anyway. We meet a princess, Rosalina (Brie Larson), who is the mother of a brood of multi-coloured stars (the biology of this doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it – and don’t worry about the stars eating tinier stars like popcorn either). She’s kidnapped by Bowser Jr (The Smashing Machine director Benny Safdie), who’s out to avenge his imprisoned dad (Jack Black). Meanwhile Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) meet and befriend Yoshi (Donald Glover) and set out to help Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she goes off to rescue her fellow royal.

It’s worth mentioning all those celebrity names because you won’t necessarily be able to tell that some of them are in this. Glover and Safdie are unrecognisable; presumably they are either diehard fans of the games, or fans of big stacks of cash, but it doesn’t feel like they’re adding nearly as much as they could be. Glen Powell’s Fox McCloud is better casting, even in a limited number of scenes (setting up a spin-off?), but the voice cast as a whole can’t do much with so little. And there really is vanishingly little to work with: they toy with a redemption arc for Bowser, and then… don’t. Nothing feels consequential or deliberate — it’s all just stuff happening and you’re unlikely to remember any of it.

Said stuff is certainly fast-paced and frenetic, though. Sugared-up children (or adults) in the audience should be happy with ninjis (like ninjas, but cuter) attacking in a casino and Tostarenans (like Día de Muertos skeletons, but cuter)waiting for Mario and Luigi at the end of a pointless bike race. You could argue that the same madcap pace powers the child-centric _Minion_s movies, and that’s true — but they are, crucially, often very funny. This has barely a chuckle, and there isn’t even a breakout moment like the Peaches song from the first film to buoy your spirits. You have to really be invested in hearing little musical stings from the games, glimpsing weird supporting characters, or seeing moments of 16-bit, to sustain you through this bizarrely boring assault on the senses.