Summary
Netflix continues to try and make Millie Bobby Brown a thing, yet she continues to have as much charm as a true British great like Keira Knightly might have in one finger.
So if you needed a better example of what makes a modern Netflix film then look no further than this. Terrible CGI, a ridiculous and insulting girl boss story that makes little to no sense, and a world that feels like Bridgerton with dragons. Oh and it wastes the time of Angela Bassett and Ray Winstone giving them nothing to do and just using them as recognisable faces.
Do we need to go over the definition of a mary sue as it applies to cinematic archetypes? In case we do a mary sue is a character that has no progression and is great at whatever she tries for the fact that she is perfect and infallible. It is reductive girl power nonsense that strips away any humanity, flaws and character that a female lead can have and instead has her be this stoic, inhuman being. What sort of standard does this set for women? Again it is not empowering, they think it is with the idea that it is telling girls that they can be the dragon slayer, but girls already knew that, rather this film says that women have to be tough stoic and not feminine otherwise they are weak and part of the problem. It is incredibly reductive.
So Brown’s character is thrown by the evil male prince into a dragons lair as sacrifice, and even though we are not shown her sword fighting even for a scene in the film she is able to go toe to toe with it whereas a platoon of knights just got destroyed. Again this is cheap, rather than give her character an arc and make her human and fall and have to rise to the occasion the writers can’t be bothered to actually develop the female lead just having her immediately be perfect. It speaks to male writers that want to appear progressive but don’t actually care about their female characters so just use surface level girl boss tropes rather than make Elodie a developed character that you can actually care about.
Moreover, Brown is clearly a graduate of the Alaqua Cox school of acting as rather than try and make Elodie feel more human and real, Brown just plays the character with a constant layer of indignation ready to go on a lecture at any second. Though she is only young as we see her do more and more projects it is becoming clearer that she isn’t a good actor by any means and has clear limitations, maybe she is a one hit wonder, this would make sense why she hasn’t been cast in more Hollywood projects, outside of King Of The Monsters, and is largely now being propped up by Netflix.
Overall, just trash made by an algorithm with no care.
0.5/5
Pros.
It is unintentionally funny at times
Cons.
The CGI
It wastes Angela Bassett and Ray Winstone
The character is poorly written
The girl boss/mary sue qualities
It doesn’t actually update the trope it just recycles it and goes yes we know its bad
If you enjoyed this review, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!
Another Millennial Reviewer 