For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a serious connection
to all things associated with Cartoon Network, in particular growing up on the
legendary Cartoon Cartoons block. From the pre-pubescent spy antics of
Codename: Kids Next Door, to the superpowered comedy of the Powerpuff Girls, to
the mad science capering of Dexter’s Laboratory, even the surprisingly
emotional and poignant messages of Whatever Happened To Robot Jones?; these
shows and others helped shape a lot of how I approach and appreciate media, and
likely explains why I still hold a lot of respect for what children-centric
entertainment is capable of.
Where am I going with all this and what does it
have to do with anything? Well, considering my own liking for cartoons,
including several that aren’t exactly aiming for my demographic, I have never
really understood the disdain for bronies. And this isn’t even with hindsight;
even at the height of its backlash, the seeming hatred for these people never
made sense to me. Hell, I even joined in out of sheer social necessity, but it
was always me playing to the crowd; even as the words “screw you, bronies” came
out of my mouth, I still didn’t get the rationale of that statement.
With all that in mind, when today’s film was announced, I
knew that I’d have to give my two cents on this whole thing before stepping
into the realms that traditional masculinity seems to hate with a passion. Sure,
I’m not all that familiar with the My Little Pony franchise myself, but I’ve
watched a couple episodes of Friendship Is Magic and it’s honestly pretty good.
Let’s get into this thing and see if there is something to it beyond “it’s
based on a girly show”.
The plot: In the land of Equestria, ponies Princess Twilight
Sparkle (Tara Strong), Rainbow Dash (Ashleigh Ball), Applejack (Ashleigh Ball again), Pinkie Pie (Andrea Libman),
Fluttershy (Andrea Libman again) and
Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain) are preparing for the first Friendship Festival.
However, the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Tempest Shadow
(Emily Blunt), a unicorn working for the Storm King (Liev Schreiber) and
seeking to claim to land for the King. It’s up to the Mane 6 (get your groans
out now because the puns are only going to get worse) to save the day.
The voices for the Mane 6 are all solid, and it sure is cool
hearing Tara Strong, the voice behind a lot of animated favourites, in a
big-screen production. Especially when, even as someone with only surface
experience with the series, Strong still rings true through the character.
Blunt taps into her history with singing to bring the jaded unicorn Tempest to
life, selling the film’s main villain song brilliantly while also doing a great
service to this rather tragic character. Peña as her sidekick, on the other
hand? Not so much. He exists solely to crack jokes, most of which are ad-libbed
on his part, and they are quite lame quips.
Taye Diggs as the crafty Capper
fills out his role well, Zoe Saldana as a pirate captain is very engaging,
Kristin Chenoweth as Princess Skystar gives Pinkie Pie a run for her money in
being abrasively chipper, Liev Schreiber as The Storm King ends up playing
second fiddle to his own subordinate, given how he pales in comparison to
Tempest, and Sia is here presumably because any film nowadays aimed at girls
with a penchant for music (e.g. Pitch Perfect 2), needs
to have her involved, apparently.
And speaking of music, the soundtrack here is a seriously
mixed bag. The music itself is fine, with Daniel Ingram and co. providing some
very lively and catchy sounds to back the words, but the words themselves are
really one-track. It’s hardly surprising that a series with the subtitle “Friendship
Is Magic” would have a film with this many songs about friendship in its many
forms, but that kind of cohesion results in a fair bit of monotony. The opening
song, aside from reintroducing the main cast, kept giving me flashbacks to “We
Can Do Anything” from the Garbage Pail Kids Movie in how plain its message is
of friends working together. Sia’s contribution Rainbow sticks to Sia’s
wheelhouse of emotional balladry, but given how emotional impact is basically
her one and only tool as a musician, a film that predominantly uses the music
to impose message isn’t exactly an ideal fit for her. It sounds pretty and does
little else, honestly.
That said, there are
really good musical moments in here, like Tempest’s aforementioned villain song
Open Your Eyes and Capper’s number I’m The Friend You Need, both taking the
main idea of friendship down some more cynical directions. Also,
as cheesy as it is, Time To Be Awesome being used to get the pirates back into
form honestly lives up to its title; pirates teaming up with magical creatures
to fight evil just makes too much Rule Of Cool sense for me to argue with.
One of the main reasons why I’m still quite partial to media
supposedly made just for kids, aside from a bunch of it being a lot smarter
than most people give them credit for, is that this demographic is really the
only group right now getting decent fantasy stories nowadays. Everyone else is
going after science fiction stories, and the few instances we do get of fantasy stories for older
audiences are usually tied up in comic book cinematic universes; as I said not
that long ago, a bit of variety in that regard would be helpful.
And from what
I see here, this provides exactly that. A fantasy adventure about
magically-gifted heroes fighting an evil conquering empire; sounds pretty good
to me. As we see the Mane 6 journey to save their kingdom, meeting pirates,
mermaid ponies, scavengers and thieves along the way, it has the kind of pacing
that makes for what feels like an epic adventure. Going beyond the boundaries
of Equestria fills out the film’s world, and even if I’m a little disappointed
that we don’t get to meet the queen of the hippos, the characters and locales
we do see make this feel like a real
breathing world that the characters inhabit. Again, given how fantasy films
nowadays usually do the bare minimum in terms of world-building, with some not
even doing that much, this is much
appreciated.
The writing here, when it sticks to what it’s good at, does
what I understand to be the series’ approach to story: Imparting messages on
its audience. As much as I’m a bit meh on some of the songs, they all work as
far as looking at the importance of making allies and trusting one another.
Hell, One Small Thing as a song highlights how seemingly small acts of kindness
can lead to something greater. That's a level of maturity and salience that is
pretty representative of the modern kids animation scene. It has its place, and
even if its main intent is definitely aimed at younger audiences, it’s a hell
of a lot more mature than some of the “adult” message films I’ve seen this year
(looking at you, The Shit Shack).
But that’s all on the dramatic and
character-driven side; the comedy is far less effective. Friendship Is Magic made
its mark, in part, through a highly knowledgeable understanding of pop culture.
I mean, this is the same show that has a character named Doctor Whooves. This film definitely has that same willingness to reference,
but the references made here are… embarrassing, frankly. I appreciate the
writing going beyond just what is popular now
for its references, but when you’re at the point of referencing “lions and
tigers and bears, oh my!”, it’s near-impossible not to sound dated. Add to that
Grubber’s poor ab-libs and how Pinkie Pie seems to be the only character capable of being annoying and funny, and the comedy side of things isn’t all that impressive.
Shame, really, since the rest of it is legitimately quite good.
All in all, even as someone who doesn’t have that much
history with the series, this is a pretty good kids film. The acting is very
good, with Emily Blunt genuinely impressing as our focal villain, the animation
brings that familiar Flash-created sheen and bulks it up for the big screen,
the music is hit and miss but all of it has something to contribute to the
story, and the story itself is high fantasy joy with plenty of nice sentiments
for the little ones to latch onto. Actually, given how divided the world at
large is nowadays, some of these sentiments might do the adults in the crowd
some good as well.
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