Pippa Sitkoff

I've never, ever written a public review for a movie before, but this one was so unbelievably atrocious that I've felt compelled to ever since I saw it. Going into this movie, I was hopeful for about the first five minutes. However, it launches directly into the same generic teen romance/drama you've seen about a million times before. The plot reveals itself to be nothing more than a meager rip-off of Turning Red mixed with Little Mermaid. Don't get comfortable with anything you see, because this movie is like a bad trip. It shifts between plot points and settings at breakneck speed, and the characters speak at the same pace. Nothing has a chance to settle in your mind and there's no time to get attached to anyone, or even understand what's happening. Personality is unheard of, replaced with sporadic internet and modern culture references. You can't relate to anyone, the villain is glaringly obvious from the second you see her, and Ruby's extended family are obnoxious and loud. There were almost no characters I liked except for, ironically since it's a movie so blatantly pandering to the concept of "women power", the father and the uncle. Not to mention the visuals in this movie. You think they're ugly from the start, even when you just look at Ruby herself. She's blue, but dressed like a watermelon. Everything in their house has contrasting colors. When Ruby transforms into the abomination this movie calls a "kraken", everything takes a turn for the worse. Whenever a "kraken" character is on the screen, they're so large that they nearly take up all the real estate, and they glow absurdly, nausea inducingly bright and saturated colors. So bright, in fact, that I couldn't even see the shaders anymore. I genuinely thought numerous scenes were not fully rendered, and that wasn't limited to the bright and colorful scenes, either. Some scenes in the prom boat even looked like early 1990's era animation, before CG was well understood. It makes this movie feel like a rough draft or a storyboard, not something complete. The character design was awful, the entirety of the Gillman family was most comparable to those cheap, sticky slap hands you get from quarter machines in your local shopping center. You'd probably have a more engaging time repeatedly throwing one of those at the wall. I'd write about the story, but I can barely remember what it was, and I watched the movie last night. All I can think about was how I didn't realize soon enough that the intro was full of movies I'd wish I was watching instead of this hogwash. Since watching Disney slowly fall from grace, I'd hoped that DreamWorks would continue to be a light shining in the darkness, since they've been able to produce such strong titles such as Prince of Egypt, Megamind, Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon - You could even forgive that they made Shark Tale, but the existence of this movie spells an extremely bleak future for the company, at least in my mind. It feels like it was conceptualized, designed and produced by the sorts of dopamine-fueled social media influencers that we watch cringe compilations about, and all quality seems to have been expended in favor of political inclusion. My friends and I all had headaches after watching this movie, and though I thought it was a joke when other reviewers said that they needed therapy, it genuinely inspired a mild episode of depression and brain fog within me over the following day. I hope that it lifts soon. I don't think this movie is suitable for anyone, especially not young children. Don't watch this movie.