There is no simple way of telling this, but this movie is the most horrific example of "And then..." storytelling I have seen in a very long time. There is no two ways about this, they took the idea of "Galaxy" wayyyyyy too far. If you wanted one of the most shallow ways to get through a plot, your disastrously constructed warp star has come in! Yes, I know that's a Kirby reference, but it makes far more sense than this movie! This is not a joke. It was hard to believe why so many people were having such a horrible reaction to this film, but it was very important not to spoil anything in the movie before watching it. It made no difference. The script had already gotten turned into a Yoshi egg.
It was like they didn't know what they wanted to do with the plot, or where they wanted to set the story at all, which is understandable for a Mario Galaxy movie to see as a problem. Their solution? Make up whatever you can about the story, regardless of whether it made sense, then shove in as many references to the video games as they possibly can within an almost two hour runtime. It pains the mind to think that they probably cut out a lot more scenes of this ADHD garbage. The characters are thrown into situations one after the other.
First, Rosalina starts talking to her star "children", of which there are many, curiously, AND THEN they start to beg her to read the Mario story when she already started with the Peach story AND THEN skip to the Donkey Kong scene AND THEN she decides to wait until tomorrow because there are planet quaking stomps heard AND THEN the giant robot attacks!!! Did you see what happened there? The addle-brained storytelling starts with the opening dialogue. The children's voices are all so mind-numbingly cute, as is Yoshi's, and it is hard to pay attention to them because they start the nagging. Take this for how the entire storyline goes.
Yoshi is immediately found on their first mission, which takes place in the Mexican level of Mario Odyssey. The references in this movie are good. That's probably because Nintendo helped to make it. You really would have thought that at least one of them could write a competent story, much their video games, but I digress. With no trouble or real squabble, they pull Yoshi out of the pipe and he is IMMEDIATELY their best friend ever. Toad even points this out, and no, it does not make it better. If they caught him when he hatched, which would have ruined a decent gag but been more effective, this could have been resolved. No, though, they needed their joke of him having a slightly entertaining journey. Make the argument that he hatched at the end of the first movie all you want, but they have retconned more for the less.
It does not end there, folks, oh no. You see, they have now officially introduced Bowser Jr. to the cast. While his character is handled with some grace, we obviously don't spend a whole lot of time introducing him. Nope! We need to show that Rosalina can handle herself in battle. The spectacle is where this movie shines, obviously, and the fight scenes are very entertaining. The character models are obviously spot on and the references of Big Bertha and the Giant Level from Mario 3 are all solid entries in this movie's MILES and MILES of Yoshi eggs scattered throughout.
Going through this story felt like a fever-dream. Characters have no idea what they are doing because they are just reacting to the most random assortment of events. This is not just small little tiny shrug your shoulder sort of event, either. Everything needs to go wrong and then immediately become fixed as soon as the plot needs to move on. Trying to recall every single major plot point in this movie would be like trying to pick up every single thumb-tack you dropped with boxing gloves. It's that tedious! While it was nice to hear Jack Black again, it did not help this film at all. Yes, I am a fan of Tenacious D, but Bowser was wasted potential, especially with how he becomes big again! Villains come and go in droves and it is all just too much for the brain to process without needing to look away.
This review could go scene by scene destroying this movie's inner being, but that would be a ridiculous waste of human life. If you're in the mood to quick-run Mario's vast array of levels in a speedrun they apparently copied into this film, do not let this deter you. If you're just in it for the jokes and the gaming catalogue of quick Nintendo brand nostalgia, there is no judgement here. Honestly, this could be a decent introduction to very small children that may find out they love Mario. That's fine, but when the first movie was a mild success and more focused film all around, you could say that expectations were set a little high for whatever they thought they were doing here. Whatever it was, they didn't accomplish it. Someone needs to tell them that not every scene needs to be a knock-down dragout fight, nor does every character need to have the attention span of a Cheep Cheep. Virtua Chain Chomp!
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