DAMSEL
Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Robin Wright, Ray Winstone, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Nick Robinson, and Angela Bassett
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
QUENTIN
As a female empowerment fairytale featuring dragons, Damsel certainly has an audience out there, but I’m not entirely sure who it is. The main problem is that this movie seems to be made for young, pre-teen girls, yet it feels too dark and intense for that demographic. On the other hand, the adults who would appreciate the more Games of Thrones-y aspects are probably too old for the cheesy YA aspects of the story. Some of that falls on Millie Bobby Brown, whose not-great performance can’t find a consistency between those two approaches, but also on the extremely cheap looking special effects and underwhelming story beats.
CALEB
Damsel, while not insultingly bad, is ultimately just another disposable piece of streaming fodder that you'll likely forget about five minutes after finishing it. Millie Bobby Brown does her Millie Bobby Brown thing, bouncing between her usual cheeky smiles, steely gazes, and wails of agony. She's not awful, but again, forgettable is the operative word here. The visuals are similarly unremarkable, hindered by underlit interiors, unconvincing costumes, and an overabundance of poorly realized digital set extensions. Thankfully, there's an impressive-looking CG dragon that prevents the narrative from ever becoming too monotonous. Damsel definitely isn't remarkable, but at least it isn’t terrible.
PAIGE
Damsel is a flawed and cheesy experience, but it's still a passably amusing fantasy movie that should find an audience. If you can turn off your brain to ignore the poor CGI and simplistic story, you’ll find that Damsel offers a somewhat entertaining spin on the traditional fairytale. Millie Bobby Brown uses the run-of-the-mill narrative to effectively portray a damsel-in-distress who is not to be messed with, but that aside, the writers need to understand that a successful story requires more than just a compelling lead.
PRESTON
As unoriginal as my review could have been by fitting in the word “trope” somehow, it's also about the same level of unoriginality that the Damsel plot ends up revealing. I am a fan of Millie Bobby Brown, but the ridiculous number of ear-grating groans from pain that occur borders on laughable. I am probably being a little harsh on what is supposed to be an escapist break for those that don’t want to take their weeknight streaming too seriously, but unless my dragon comes with the soothing vocal affectations of one, Sean Connery, I’m probably out anyways.