For all the talk of the difficulties of landing a perfect sequel, the formula offers a few key advantages. Sequels don’t have to dedicate chunks of their runtimes to establishing their characters. We know that more isn’t always better, but with a franchise like Mario, it really should be. There’s certainly no shortage of subject material to adapt.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie dives right into its plot. Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) raises the Lumas, a cute starry species, on the Comet Observatory, having long ago sent her sister Peach (Anna Taylor-Joy) to the Mushroom Kingdom. Rosalina is captured by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), seeking to carry on his father’s legacy.

The film largely follows Peach’s efforts to rescue her sister, while Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), and newcomer Yoshi (Donald Glover) guard the Mushroom Kingdom back home, including their Bowser (Jack Black), still their prisoner after the events of the first film. There are some cursory thoughts given to things like character development, quickly abandoned. The narrative rarely lets up the gas, even to properly introduce the newcomers.

Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic have no ambitions for their work beyond crafting a feature-length cutscene, a gorgeous film with absolutely zero substance. It’s almost astonishing to see how little effort was put into telling a story. The brisk 98-minute runtime has little room for an overstuffed cast or anything at all besides constant action sequences.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie falls into the same trap as many recent franchise sequels of prioritizing new characters at the expense of the titular hero. Mario is barely a factor in his own movie. There isn’t a single scene where Chris Pratt makes an impression as the leading character of the film.

There is a certain temptation to say that Peach is actually the star of the movie, given her added screentime. The relationship between Peach and Rosalina is certainly the emotional anchor, and the banter between Peach and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) is a lot of fun. The film doesn’t really have a star, constantly bouncing back and forth between its characters and its action sequences, rarely taking a moment to breathe.

The lack of downtime really kills the humor. Day, Key, and Black were all highlights of the first film, the latter clearly having the time of his life as Bowser. Black is completely wasted, while Day and Key are given little to do. Worst of all, Donald Glover is given practically nothing to work with for Yoshi. They’re all just kind of there.

The film does have a lot of easter eggs. Longtime Mario fans will be impressed with the way the throwbacks were woven into the action, but that dynamic begs the broader question. Why wasn’t such care taken toward the rudimentary fundamentals of this story? Why is this such an empty experience?

The answer lies in the bread and butter of filmmaking. We are given no reason to care about Mario. The only effort made to make us care about Peach comes from tugging at the emotional heartstrings of a sibling relationship, not from work put into the screenplay. The action is quite good. Once again, Horvath and Jelenic have shown us that they know how to adapt video gameplay, a feat that might be impressive to anyone who hasn’t seen one of those epic Super Smash Bros. openings. They’re really, really good at the easiest part of this whole experience.

The storytelling is pure slop. To call it paint-by-numbers would be insulting to the brainpower required to count. The Rosalina rescue mission is lazy and predictable, just like the whole experience, which is actually pretty frustrating if you’ve ever played a Mario game, which almost always has that one level that drives you crazy. Unlike this nonsense, those games have identities.

That level for these movies appears to be character development. The Super Mario Galaxy movie has some entertainment value from the nature of the spectacle, but it’s a stunningly empty experience. Mario’s source material is a video game. That’s no excuse for his exceedingly lazy characterization over the past two films.

Mario games have never forgotten that great gameplay doesn’t have to come at the expense of great art. Super Mario Galaxy is one of the greatest games of the 21^st century. If only this movie had any ambitions beyond replacement-level content for young children with poor attention spans.