Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2

* Poster 2

"*I hate sequels!*"

***Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2*** is a 2025 American 3D live-action/computer-animated comedy film and a sequel to the 2023 film Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It is loosely based on *Mario vs. Donkey Kong* comic book series created by the japanese video game series. It is second film in Mario vs. Donkey Kong film series, produced by *Universal Pictures*, *Illumination*, *Kerner Entertainment Company*, and *Hemisphere Media Capital*, and distributed by *Universal Pictures Releasing*. The film is directed by Raja Gosnell, who helmed the first, with all the main cast returning. New cast members include Christina Ricci and J. B. Smoove as members of the Naughties, and Brendan Gleeson as Patrick Winslow's stepfather. The film was released on July 31, 2025.

## Plot

Hoping to harness the magical Mini-essence, the evil wizard Donkey Kong creates a pair of Minilike creatures, called Naughties. However, only a real Mini can give Donkey Kong what he wants, so he kidnaps Toadsworth to force her to cast a spell that will transform the Naughties into Minis. Papa, Clumsy, and the rest of Mario vs. Donkey Kong reunite with their human friends Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays) to rescue Toadsworth from the wizard's clutches.

## Why This Movie Is Not Miniy At All

1. This movie is far less faithful to the source material than what made Mario vs. Donkey Kong franchise good, or even any of the good qualities of the first film. Not to mention, there are barely even any Minis making full appearances in this movie. But unlike the first film (where it was set in New York), it is set in a different location, which is Paris.
2. Blue Winslow, while cute, is annoying and has an extremely cringe-worthy voice. Aside from that, he contributed absolutely nothing to the plot whatsoever other than to state the obvious of what's happening through the majority of the film.
3. The concept of bad Minis (aka Naughties) being created, although interesting, was poorly executed.
4. Much of the plot is recycled from the first film, which was already a bad film before.
5. The attempts at humor are poor and even worse than in the original film, like the infamous scene where Rosalina Mini makes horrendous fart bubbles in a sink, followed also by a childish phrase said by this one.
6. **False advertising:** On the DVD case poster, Birdo Mini is in Paris as the main characters, but he never appears and doesn't gets a major role as the main characters in the movie.
7. Patrick Winslow was heavily flanderized in this film into a whiny manchild who is prejudiced against his step-father for releasing his bird due to Patrick himself having a feather allergy to his old pet bird, and is extremely unlikeable during the beginning of this movie and his reason for hating his step-father is completely unjustified and pathetic, since Victor is established as a really nice guy. He also has no sympathy for his family at all and treats his step-father like a butt monkey throughout the whole film which makes Patrick come across as selfish and easy to hate.
8. A pointless side-plot of Victor turning into a duck, thanks to Donkey Kong, which leads to a very cringe-worthy and inappropriate scene where he transforms back to normal in the air and falls down naked while trying to carry Mario vs. Donkey Kong.
9. This film is extremely mean-spirited. Mario vs. Donkey Kong act like total jerks to Toadsworth, even though they were only doing that for her surprise day.
10. There is little to no character development for the majority of the characters, mainly from Vexy and Hackus, who never really get a proper introduction and were never seen or mentioned again after this movie, notably during the events of *mh:greatestmovies:Minis: The Lost Village*, or any Minis media at that.
11. Donkey Kong's funny charm and wonderful spirit from the previous film was completely downgraded here, as he is far more weak with his jokes and his performance is nowhere near as good as in the previous film, as Hank Azaria was probably fed up with playing the character due to how much he hated being in these films and it's obvious with the way how he acts when compared to the previous film where he had fun with the performance and the character overall.
12. Just like the first film, there are quite a few unnecessary product placements, including one where Bowser has a *Facebook* account.
13. Similar to the first film, it has an unfitting setting that takes place in modern times instead of a magical fairy-tale setting like the source material.
14. Horrible scenes, like the unnecessarily loud and aggravating squeals scene, the Rosalina's disgusting fart bubbles scene and the corn dog scene.
15. As mentioned stated, many scenes are recycled from other movies. Aside from copying plot points from the first movie, the plot itself is also a blatant rip-off from *Super Mario World: Finding Cheep Cheep*.
16. **Plot hole:** During the end credits of *Mario vs. Donkey Kong*, Mushroom Kingdom was being rebuilt in New York's image; however, in this film, the entire village is shown in its original state making it more like a reboot.
17. During the scene where Toadsworth, Vexy, and Hackus ride the storks, an unknown song can be heard playing throughout. And to make matters worse, the song's title is not confirmed, leaving several people to backlash at the latter to point out what the song is called.
18. Mario vs. Donkey Kong looks like blue Shreks again because their designs from the previous film with uncannily realistic facial features that don't fit them at all are still present, though they are better here than in the previous film due to having slightly more cartoonier features which the previous films lacked.
19. Way too many unneeded pop-culture references, including the references of *Surface*, *The Empire Strikes Back*, *Star Wars*, *Stuart Little*, *Disney Princess*. It also uses pop-culture songs, such as *Vacation.*
20. This film also ended Jonathan Smurfs's career on a sour note, since this was the last movie that he ever had a role in before because he passed away on April 11, 2025, only nine days after he had finished recording his dialogue for Papa Mini.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. Heitor Pereira's score is solid. Plus, "Ooh La La" by Britney Spears is somewhat decent, albeit really not as good as "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" by Panic! at the Disco
2. As mentioned above, Blue Winslow is kind of cute.
3. A few genuinely funny moments, like a gargoyle biting Donkey Kong's butt leading him to scream like a little girl and Rosalina's screaming quote: **"I can't see!!! I can't see!! I'm on a darkness lifeless planet that smells like corn dogs!!!"** while jump-scaring Victor.
4. Still, a few of the actors give decent performances, such as Jacob Trembley, who did very well playing the role of Blue despite how pointless and annoying the character is. Following this, he would grow up to appear in many movies, like *Luca*, *Room, Good Boys,* *Wonder* and more.
5. The idea of having evil Minis (known as Naughties) is interesting despite the poor execution.
6. The CGI is still great, and even a slight improvement over the original, although Clumsy can seem a bit weaker here.
7. Patrick and Victor eventually reconcile while saving Mario vs. Donkey Kong.
8. Grace is still at least a likable character and wasn't flanderized like Patrick was.
9. The scene where Toadsworth's wand backfires and sends Papa Mini and all of his Minis through a window is very heartbreaking.
	* Donkey Kong lets more Minis starve to death which grieves Toadsworth is also very emotional and epic. Them turning blue afterward is kind of heartwarming.
10. Whilst there is still an excessive amount of product placements in the film, they are not quite as bad as the amount of ones that there were in the first film.

## Reception

*Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2* received much worse reviews than the first movie by critics and audiences for its poor attempts at humor, characters, plot, screenplay, and perceived lack of fidelity to its source material, despite some audiences considering the film as a slight improvement over its predecessor while most critics considered it as its predecessor all over again. The review aggregator website mh:rottenwebsites: Rotten Tomatoes reported a 14% approval rating with an average rating of 4/10 based on 94 reviews; making it the second lowest-rated film ever produced by Illumination on the site behind *The Emoji Movie*. The website's consensus reads, "Like its predecessor, *Minis 2* may amuse small children, but it's largely an unambitious, charm-free collection of slapstick gags and one-liners.". On Metacritic, the film has weighted a score of 34 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." The film earned an "A-" from audiences polled by CinemaScore.

### Box Office

The film did nowhere near as much as the previous film, it was declared a Box Office Disappointment in terms of how much it made, doing a total of $347.5 million units at the box office against a $105 million dollar budget with the film not meeting Universal's own expectations on how much it would make at the Box Office, as it bombed majorly in Europe and faced a lot of competition with PG-rated films released during 2025, which caused the film to underperform slightly with it resulting the soon to be third film in the Live Action Minis movie series getting cancelled due to the disappointing Box Office results of the second film.

### Awards & Nominations

It was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, or Sequel but lost to *The Lone Ranger*.

## External links

* Template:IMDb
* Template:Rotten Tomatoes