This film feels like a course correction in the worst way
possible. DreamWorks Animation, who have dealt with labels of ‘Disney/Pixar
rip-off’ pretty much since their inception, have recently been making films
that are not only really damn good, but good in a way that sidesteps any kind
of association with other studios. The Trolls movies, The Bad Guys, Captain Underpants, How To Train Your Dragon, not to mention last year’s genuine artistic triumph with Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. Their reputation in the modern day is quite secure,
far as I’m concerned… which is what makes their latest release so thoroughly
disappointing.
The story takes a lot of ‘influence’ from more recent Disney/Pixar movies. It involves a young sea monster trying to fit in on dry land a la Luca, it uses sudden kaijuification as a metaphor for puberty like with Turning Red, and some of the plot details involving a mystical trident and a red-haired mermaid are… well, yeah. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with pulling from those films, since they are all quite good on their own (yes, even the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, don’t @ me), but the way they have been utilised here strips them of anything interesting and just leaves the refuse to be put on-screen.
Like Turning Red, this involves quite a bit of parent-child friction to do with keeping one’s true identity a secret from them, with the titular Ruby (Lana Condor) being told by her mother (Toni Collette) to never go into the ocean, but without telling her it’s because she will turn into a giant kraken by doing so. However, where TR actively pointing out that this kind of controlling behaviour is incredibly unhealthy and not conducive to a happy relationship, this keeps hiding that fact away behind “oh, but I was just so worried about you” pretences. It may have sanded off any kind of edge in how that friction is portrayed here, but that doesn’t make it going for the polar opposite conclusion any easier to deal with.
There’s also the fact that this film is straight-forward as far as plotting goes, much to its detriment. It sets up not just that conflict between Ruby and her mother, but also her eventual friendship with Chelsea (Annie Murphy), a mermaid who just started at Ruby’s high school. It follows the trajectory of not just Disney/Pixar but quite a lot of modern media made for children, where it sets up a situation of distrust between people so it will usually go towards dispelling the myths and showing that harmony is possible. Not here, though. Everything is played out note-for-note, with zero shift from initial expectations, which only ends up reinforcing every single prejudice behind Ruby’s mother’s justification for hiding her real heritage from her.
It doesn’t help that the film piles bland on top of bland in
its presentation of this wrong’un of a take. The animation is standard fare for
a modern family film, only with the way the krakens are visualised on dry land,
it leads to some unintentional Octodad-esque comedy with how seemingly no one
notices the webbed ears and blue skin. Considering it plays her
potentially being outed as a kraken for teenaged anxiety later on, there’s
either a trick being missed or just not being thought through. The set pieces
involving Ruby discovering the underwater world and being taught by her
grandmother (Jane Fonda) are fine as they are, but there’s nothing special
about them. Like the plot, they stick to the basics without adding
anything to them, which ends up cutting into the attempts at liberation when Ruby
finally gets to experience freedom under the sea. It's difficult to appreciate a message of freedom coming from something restraining itself so intently.
The soundtrack is utter dross as well. All bland modern pop that sounds indistinguishable from each other, and the film’s attempts to line them up with moments that are meant to be exciting on-screen are rather pitiable. Although it does, however unintentionally, make for a solid representation of the film at large, particularly with its inclusion of Rita Ora’s Praising You: It’s bland, it’s annoying, and it’s a pale interpolation of much better material.
It feels like it’s been a while since a film properly disappointed me as much as this did. It’s as if someone in DreamWorks corporate was getting worried that their output wasn’t homogenous and mass-marketed enough in light of more recent creativity, so they decided to send this out into the world without even much of an idea of who it’s for. I get that I’m likely out of whatever demographic is aimed at regardless, but between the soulless rehashing of tired high school melodrama, the frankly dull bits of fantasy world-building (even if getting that backstory exposition by way of underwater neon signs was kind of neat), and just the lack of compelling characterisation, especially from Ruby herself, I’m struggling to think of who would be able to get into this. I guess if someone hadn’t already seen its influences before, it might have a chance, but even then, I can only see that being a chance to ruin those other works by having them associated with this in the minds of a younger audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment