The Super Mario Galaxy Movie debuts to a disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score – and fails to beat the original film

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has debuted to a disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score – and, so far, it's failed to improve on the score of the first movie.

The sequel currently holds a score of 44% (based on 84 reviews) on the review aggregator site. That's a pretty significant drop-off from 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which has a score of 59% (based on 288 reviews).

Our own The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review gave the film three stars, with our reviewer writing that it "surpasses the original thanks to relentless energy and creativity, but its starry-eyed ambitions fizzle out thanks to the bizarre treatment of Brie Larson's Rosalina and an undercooked story."

"It's cute, and breezy, and rock-stupid, and will probably make a billion dollars again. Such is the world in which we live," says RogerEbert.com's review.

"There’s barely a plot here. Not a single memorable character," writes The Independent. "Not even another piano ditty for Jack Black to sing. It’s a series of large, vaguely connected explosions."

"If anything, the film only loses energy as it goes on, with the final confrontation proving particularly anemic and rushed, as if the film is hurrying along to avoid having to delve into its storylines with more than a surface skim," IndieWire's review notes.

"The film is an unpretentiously vapid cocktail of big-budget technical mastery and lack of artistic ambition," states Slant Magazine.

Not everyone is quite as down on the movie, though. "Vivid worlds, memorable characters, silly laughs: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is not deep but it's made with love and it hits the spot," writes Time Out.

Chris Pratt and Charlie Day return to voice Mario and Luigi in the sequel as they set their sights to the stars for a galactic adventure. They're joined by some new characters, too, including Brie Larson's Princess Rosalina, Donald Glover's Yoshi, and Benny Safdie's Bowser Jr.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to all the upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.