Shigeru Miyamoto Was Surprised by Harsher Mario Galaxy Movie Critic Reviews - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 22 April 2026 / 3,772 Views
Shigeru Miyamoto during a group interview with Japanese media at the local release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie said he was surprised critic reviews were harsher than the first movie, according to Famitsu.
"It's true: the situation is indeed very similar," said Miyamoto (via VideoGamesChronicle). "Actually, regarding the previous film, I felt that the critics' opinions did hold some validity. However, I thought things would be different this time around - only to find that the criticism is even harsher than it was before.
"It really is quite baffling: here we are - having crossed over from a different field - working hard with the specific aim of helping to revitalize the film industry, yet the very people who ought to be championing that cause seem to be the ones taking a passive stance."
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on Rotten Tomatoes has a critic score of 43 percent, while its audience score is 89 percent. The first film had a critic score of 59 percent and an audience score of 95 percent.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie through three weekends earned $355.2 million at the domestic box office, $392.2 million overseas, and $747.4 million globally.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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It was good.. but I do wish they would slow down the pacing at some points and actually let more meaningful plot points have their time
yes totally agree! still, never ever trusting critics on movies again
Well it is Mario, not exactly known for it's plot. I think these movies are supposed to be a blast of fun with tons of references to the games, and they easily deliver on both those points.
The time for slowing down the pace and a meaningful plot will be the Zelda movie (hopefully movies, plural!). Being live action and Zelda, that's the type of movie where they need to switch gears and make something that is more than just "fun", making a longer deeper plot-filled high fantasy movie.
Spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen it: But I do think with Mario Galaxy they could've added say like 10 more minutes to the movie to explore the whole Bowser switching back from being good to bad. Late in the movie I was like wait does he still want Bowser Jr to let them off or is he like fully bad again now? That switch happened pretty quickly, def not enough time given to Bowser's emotional arc in making that change. Oh actually and add a few minutes of them traversing Galaxy-type planetoids, if I remember correctly that was in there but literally only for less than a minute I think.
There's been a whole lot less hype around this movie than the last.
Maybe for us adults, but as someone who has a elementary teacher as a partner, kids are losing their minds over it. Kids are going to be the reason this movie is successful or not.
And it certainly is succeeding. Looks like it's definitely on it's way to a billion dollars, still selling real well and apparently hasn't even released in Japan yet.
"Yet the very people who ought to be championing that cause seem to be the ones taking a passive stance."
You got spoiled by gaming critics being on the side of the developer/publisher. That's not really how it's supposed to work.
Out of touch 40 year old men that don't get the references and easter eggs, say Mario Movie was bad.
Unpopular opinion.
The movie was a diarrhea of ideas.
It was like they did a huge checklist of easter eggs, and every 10 seconds they moved to the next.
There's no time to develop a plot, I'm afraid these are the new movies for the generation of kids who can focus for less than 10 seconds without losing interest.
The first was way better.
Went and saw it last week, loved it. Haters can cry and die.
Yeah, its a bit of a weird comment by Miyamoto here. First of all the critics usually review the movie before we know if its a success or not. So they dont know if they are championing a hit or a flop at that point. I mean you can have certain indications that something will do well, but you never know how fast it will fall off. Also its not their job to champion movies. Their job is to let us know their honest thoughts about it, so we can make the choice to watch it or not.
Miyamoto's opinion is funny, I don't think he is familiar with how movie critics work haha. You don't get praised simply for moving into the movie industry with fun movies. I think he is too naive based on the general curve that game reviewers give Nintendo games, specifically when they fall a bit flat so as not to be too harsh on popular Ninty franchises. That said, critics opinions aren't exactly reliable for saying how much audiences will enjoy a movie.
I just saw the movie yesterday and loved it. Both Mario movies have been a lot of fun. Sure it's not gonna be an award winning film that moves you to the heights of emotion haha, but its a blast of a movie that will please anyone who grew up playing Mario or Nintendo games whether they are kids or adults.
Loved all the references to different mario games, and now I reallllllyyyy want a star fox movie. After these two Mario movies I feel like a DK and a Star Fox movie should be on the slate for end of the decade after the Zelda movie.
Me too. I thought this was the better of the 2 movies
It wasn't awful, just needed to be longer and have a somewhat slower pace.
How could such a significant discrepancy between audience and critics be explained?
that critics who watch movies for a living obviously expect more from their entertainment. critics never pull the "it's made for 3 year olds" defense. there's obviously kids movies that do better critically.
Critics opinions don't reflect general audience. You'll often the see the opposite. A movie that critics rave about that most movie goers think is terrible. This isn't just movies though, it's entertainment in general. In short, critic opinions are of zero value to the consumer. Find someone with similar tastes and use them as a barometer for your interest.
Because film critics are comparing this movie to 50+ other major American movies coming out every year, whereas most of the general audience (which statistically sees only 4 theatrical films a year) is thinking "Yeah, this film gave me what I expected and entertained my kids for 98 minutes."
Another key difference is, that the general audiance usually glorifies a subset (p) of a movie's qualities and ignores anything bad. This creates a structural (positivity) bias
The audience who goes to see Mario are fans of Mario and only expects 100 minutes of fanservice
Critics expect a story that will entertain them, which this movie will not unless you're a Nintendo fan in first place
6.4 is actually quite good on imdb. Average movies typically score in the 5's, good movies in the 6's. Anything 6.0 or better is a good rating for a movie. 7 and up is a very high score, so 6.4 is quite good.
