The Reel Review
Dutiful damsel Elodie agrees to save her impoverished kingdom by marrying a wealthy prince in a neighboring kingdom – only to discover on her wedding night that she is to be sacrificed to a bloodthirsty dragon as part of a centuries-old debt. With no one to help her, this damsel in distress must use her wits to save herself. Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett and Robin Wright star in this fantasy/action-adventure.
Brown takes the same ebullient energy from the popular Enola Holmes films into this visually dazzling, but thinly-written tale of women empowerment that plays out like a video game. At first glance, the prince (Love, Simon‘s Nick Robinson) seems to be a promising young man of her dreams. But cracks soon appear in the façade when his queen mother (Robin Wright) coldly spurns efforts by Elodie’s stepmother (Bassett) to befriend her. This Cinderella story then turns into something more like Die Hard. Shohreh Aghdashloo is terrific as the voice of the dragon.
Brown’s Elodie turns out to be something of a MacGyver, resourcefully turning her bridal gown into a cadre of weapons and tools and using bio-luminescent worms to guide her maze-obsessed self through the dragon’s underground labyrinth. While Elodie’s transformation from a ball gown wearing princess to an ass-kicking warrior is as far-fetched as the story, this breezy film is silly fun and has enough stunning visuals and a nice message to help get past the negatives.
REEL FACTS
• The glow worms in Damsel are based on real glow worms, gnat larva, that live in the Waitomo cave system in New Zealand’s North Island.
• Ray Winstone and Robin Wright also played a king and queen in the 2007’s adult animation fantasy action film Beowulf.
• Damsel was filmed in Portugal.
Video & Photo
