Mary v Mario

And the 2026 movies I'm seeing

I kicked off my 2026 moviegoing adventures in January when the 25th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring played at a local theater. Unfortunately I got up at 4am that day, worked a full shift, and then saw the movie after dinner, so I fell asleep in Lothlórien and missed out on the action at Amon Hen. To boot, they actually didn’t play trailers at this showing, so I also missed out on the prologue.

Thus, I still haven’t seen the whole trilogy on the big screen. Alas.

I skipped all of February and March. This week I’m off work so I’m catching up on house projects and spending money at the movies. Last night the wife and I saw Project Hail Mary, and this afternoon we took the kids to Super Mario Galaxy. I have thoughts. They are generally positive.

Project Hail Mary

I read the book in 2021 shortly after it came out and I really enjoyed it. My main criticism is that Weir’s character voices probably sound cute in his head and are very popular with childless women in their thirties, but could use a little bit of testosterone and red meat. Other than that, the book was good.

To my surprise I think the movie was better. (I had the opposite reaction to The Martian.) They managed to fit the whole story into two and a half hours; the pieces they left out were the kind of details that can only fit and have room to breathe in a book. I told my wife about those. The movie also avoided the profanity of the book and I appreciate that. (PHM had far fewer F-bombs than THE MARTIAN anyway.)

Gosling was a great casting choice, the visuals were incredible (and as I understand it, overwhelmingly practical) and the soundtrack was sublime. I’ll be adding it to my lineup. Overall a great movie and as soon as we got out of the theater, my wife said to add it to our DVD list. No complaints here.

Grade: A+

Super Mario Galaxy

When the first movie dropped back in 2023, I had fun taking my kids to it and they’ve had fun burning a hole in the DVD over and over and over again. It’s energetic, it’s colorful, the Easter eggs reward the older viewers, and it’s got plenty of heart. The story is strong too: Mario and Luigi leave a good job so they can work for themselves, but they hit snags along the way and their business might fail. Then they stumble into the warp pipes from the Mushroom Kingdom, and along the way there, Luigi and Mario get separated. The goal is for Mario to learn how to navigate this new world so he can save his brother. He does, and they find new success in the Mushroom Kingdom, the end.

This movie’s story is a little weaker. It’s mostly about Peach and her estranged older sister, Rosalina. Mario and Luigi are kind of along for the ride, with Luigi doing whatever Mario does, and Mario nursing his feelings for Peach. Also, Yoshi just kind of…shows up. He’s instantly best friends with Mario, the end. On top of that, Bowser Junior has created an empire and an arsenal out in the universe, and he’s come to break his father out of prison.

In fact the main drivers of the story are Bowser Junior and Peach. Whenever the titular brothers are on screen, they’re more like gag gimmicks than anything else. It wasn’t bad, I just got bored through a lot of it, and I struggled to get invested in the erstwhile main characters. But again, my kids loved it, and the object of these movies is to convince children to separate their parents from money (success), and overall it wasn’t a bad time.

Personally my highlight was StarFox, who has a bit part near the end of the second act. He’s voiced by Glen “Not Gonna Be An A-Lister But Still A Chad” Powell, and if Nintendo doesn’t give him his own movie, they don’t love money nearly as much as I thought.

And they teased Princess Daisy in a post-credits scene. Guess we’ll learn their plans for her in another three years.

Grade: B-, maybe a C+

Coming Soon

(Google the trailers, I’m not going to clog this up with a bunch of embedded videos.)

The Mandalorian & Grogu (May)

Taking the whole family. First Star Wars movie since they crashed the franchise into the ground with Rise of Skywalker (2019). Disney knows they’ve dropped too many turds in the last 5-6 years and the trailers, at least, look like a return to form. I expect an utterly safe story with cool visuals.

Masters of the Universe (June)

Taking my son. This movie looks like a more serious version of Thor (2011), where nobody on screen is apologizing for the concept. It’s swords-and-spaceships and fantasy realms. Looks VERY accurate to the cartoon while still looking realistic. I think it’s hilarious that Idris Elba is once again playing a racebent version of a white character in this exact type of film. Trailers look great.

Supergirl (June)

Taking my son. Everybody’s got an opinion about this and I don’t care. I’ve seen two trailers, I like it, and I expect I’ll enjoy this one like I enjoyed last summer’s Superman.

Young Washington (July)

Taking my son. They’re releasing this on July 4th weekend, they know exactly who they’re targeting with it and I’ve already bought advanced tickets. Might even see this more than once if it’s good. I don’t think we’ve had a worthy Revolution movie since The Patriot.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July)

Taking my son. If my boys weren’t fighting over who gets to see what movie with me, and my younger son hadn’t come up short in the count, I wouldn’t bother. I’m checked out on Marvel and the trailer looks the same as the last several of these that they’ve done. I expect it to be aggressively adequate. The Punisher even shows up in here.

Sense & Sensibility (September)

Taking my wife. I read the book last year and I really liked it. Haven’t seen a trailer yet, maybe something will put me off it, but for now the plan is to see it.

Avengers: Endgame (September)

Taking my son. He’s gotten way into Marvel and he was too young to see it the first time around. This is his LOTR, so a big-screen treatment will be a big deal for him.

Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie (September)

Taking my daughter. Like my other son, she’s upset she doesn’t get a piece of the action, and this is the only movie on the schedule that I think I can force myself to sit through. I took her to a different one a few years ago and it wasn’t terrible.

Godzilla Minus Zero (November)

Taking my boys. We’ll watch Minus One before we go. I have very high expectations here.

Jumanji 3 (December?)

Taking my family. Is there even a title? It might get bumped. This one has been in development limbo for a long time but now The Rock has a few flops under his belt and he needs a W, so it’ll probably be good. The last couple were good fun.

It’s a Wonderful Life (December)

Taking my wife. 75th anniversary for this movie! It’ll be one of those Fathom event things but I haven’t watched this movie in a couple of years, seeing it on screen will be great.

Avengers Doomsday (December)

Taking my family. For all the reasons mentioned above. I expect I shall be amused by the cameos. I have no idea how they’re going to pull off the whole “RDJ is Doom” thing, but we’ll see. My son is excited.

Dune Part Three (December)

Taking my wife. My boys are too young to read the books and we have a rule that movies like this have to come after they’ve read the novels. (They haven’t seen LOTR yet, haven’t even seen all the Harry Potter movies). Overall I like what they’ve done with the movies—some quibbles, but nothing destroyed it. I’ll re-read Messiah before going in.

And that’s it. Doesn’t include streaming shows, which I’m not really tracking anyhow. Just flicks. Let me know if I missed anything.