Yi Young

I've never read the books, so had little expectations coming into this movie. I did read that this may have been a new franchise for Disney, but I sincerely hope they forsake that notion. There was a lot of assumptions made about the audience for this movie. I suppose it's assumed people have already read the books before, or can suspend disbelief enough that the beginning of the movie would provide enough information for the audience to accept. However, the beginning was not that interesting, so I did not pay much attention until about 5 minutes in, and at that point, the story seemed ridiculous. The overall movie seemed a weird blend of a number of other properties (like Men in Black, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc.), but didn't pull any of it off well at all. It just seemed a weird amalgamation that just felt off. While watching the whole movie, there didn't seem to be any real character development, or any opportunity for the audience to feel invested in the characters. They all felt wooden, and the moments that should have allowed for character development felt forced. At the end of the movie, I still didn't know half of the character's names (and if I did, 8 hours later, I don't remember). For me, Disney studios had been running on all cylinders for the past few years, but this movie seemed like a pretty big miss.