You know how, sometimes, you get a burger that's so thin, overcooked, and leathery that it stops being a "burger" and starts being "a vehicle for condiments"? That, to me, is Super Mario Galaxy: The story/writing is simply there to deliver Nintendo-brand nostalgia. As someone with deep love and fond memories of Nintendo, I'm okay with this---but I'm not going to pretend that the story is the narrative equivalent of Wagyu beef.
Contrary to what some of the less charitable critics say, the movie does have a cogent story: Bowser Jr. aims to rescue his father from his imprisonment and bring the dreams they shared when Jr. was young to fruition. To do that, he kidnaps Princess Rosalina, the mother of the stars, to siphon her magic. The gang sets off to rescue the Princess.
A simple enough premise; certainly serviceable. It isn't winning any awards for novelty but not everything needs to be "high art" to be enjoyable. But it fails on even this modest ambition. The execution is riddled with enough _deus ex_ to fill a Greek pantheon. Character motivations are inconsistent without real evolution. There are so many zany little subplots that it's like they worried that the audience's attention span would run out---yet they still made the thing run for over 2 hours.
Fortunately, the metaphorical "condiment" was delicious---like biting into that burger expecting Hunt's ketchup but getting homemade garlic aoli mayo. The quality of the animation made the film's many callbacks enjoyable. I found myself smiling a lot and actually thinking "dang, I really _should_ get around to playing [redacted Mario game(s)]". Which, I'm certain is all Nintendo really hoped for rather than making a genuinely excellent stand-alone cinematic experience.
In sum, it's not something I regret seeing---especially with my family. Though it is something I wish I had saved the video game's worth of money waiting for it to come out on streaming rather than seeing it in theaters.
