The verdict is in, and critics have widely panned The Super Mario Galaxy Movie while audiences have universally praised the family-friendly sequel. This follow-up to the fan-favorite The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been in theaters for about a week since its debut on April 1, and it has already had the best box office opening in 2026, earning more than $190 million over its 5-day domestic weekend. Worldwide, it has amassed $372 million, making it the fifth largest global opening ever for an animated film. Despite the movie being a massive box office hit, however, the review scores are terribly low for the video game adaptation, and there are several reasons why.
Fans vs. critics on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
As of April 6, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has a mediocre 42% Tomatometer score from a total of 175 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes while holding a fantastic 89% Popcornmeter score from over 5,000 verified user ratings. That’s a stark 47-point difference between critics and users.
A similarly wide disparity can be found on Metacritic as well, where the sequel has a “generally unfavorable” Metascore of a 37 based on 45 reviews, despite it earning a “generally favorable” user score of a 7.9 (basically, a 42-point difference).
This gulf between professional reviews and user reviews for this sequel likely isn’t too surprising by fans of the original 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie. That film earned a 59% Tomatometer but a 95% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has “mixed or average” 46 Metascore but a “universal acclaim” user score of 8.1.
To be fair, the range of critic scores for the film is vast on Metacritic, with about seven reviews above a 60 and fifteen reviews below a 40. ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim give it a “Good” 7 out of 10 rating, noting that “it doesn’t necessarily deepen the emotional or narrative complexity of the franchise, but it refines what worked before amplifies it on a grander scale.” However, many other reviews are far less kind, particularly the 0 out of 5 rating from The Times that calls the film “ugly, overbranded, lifeless digital marketing vomit” and a review from Vulture that says it’s like being “asphyxiated in a ball pit filled with candy.”
Meanwhile, multiple user reviews on Metacritic are shocked at the reviews. One called the low Metascore “absolutely ridiculous,” while another asked readers to ignore the critics altogether. A different user wrote, “It’s wild to see professional critics giving this a zero. It feels like they’ve never actually picked up a controller.” And to that person’s credit, we did find that a few critics who gave low scores admitting that the film wasn’t meant for them or that they had never played a Mario game before. Indeed, the movie is chock full of Nintendo references and easter eggs, something that Mario fans will appreciate far more than anyone who doesn’t know or care about the difference between a Super Mushroom and a Fire Flower.
More broadly speaking, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has more than several traits that critics tend to dislike but that audiences enjoy. The first is that it’s a quick-paced, action-packed film, which features a handful of battles with Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Toad, Fox McCloud, Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Wart. Another is that it’s a comedic adventure with cartoonish gags that are age-appropriate for kids and humorous to Mario fans who are in on the joke. On top of that, the film is a family-friendly video game adaptation, a genre that doesn’t usually score well from critics. A Minecraft Movie, another box office smash that earned $960 million worldwide (and also starred Jack Black), was equally slammed by critics with a 47% Tomatometer but lauded by audiences with an 84% Popcornmeter.
Taken altogether, the movie was almost made in a lab for reviewers to despise and for audiences to praise as a nostalgic love letter to Nintendo. Regardless, despite how critics feel, they’ll need to brace themselves for more, since the Nintendo Cinematic Universe is looking like it will come sooner than later.
