As much as it pains me, it’s time to step away from the world of Ghostbusters and move on to something else. This week, I returned to Netflix to watch and review their newest Millie Bobby Brown movie, “Damsel”. This is one that my wife was particularly happy to sit down and watch with me since she’s been excited to watch it since we saw the trailer a few months back. But, before we step into this fairy tale, let me warn you that like always, this will be full of spoilers, so if you want to stay innocent and pure like a princess, please wait until you’ve seen this to read on. If you have already watched it or don’t care, then step on in and leave this world behind to see what this is all about. As always, you are welcome to go here to check out my other reviews as well.
So, as I mentioned above, Damsel is a Netflix original movie that was just released. It was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who outside of 28 Weeks Later, I’m unfamiliar with his work. It has a good cast and Netflix does a good job of making this seem like an epic big-screen movie and as the tagline says: “This is not a fairytale”. It starts simple enough, with Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) and Floria (Brooke Carter) doing some chores out in a field when they see some people show up. We quickly learn that they live in a very poor country and a lot of the people have left to find a better place to live. When they arrive back home, they find out from their dad, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), that they have been invited to be guests in a different city and that the prince is interested in marrying Elodie.
The two daughters, along with Lord Bayford and his wife Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett) arrive in the new kingdom with fanfare and lots of love. However, Lady Bayford doesn’t feel comfortable with the new arrangement after Lord Bayford meets with the Queen (Robin Wright). Everything moves pretty quickly here, but somehow the story gets told without leaving anything important out. Soon, Elodie finds herself married to Prince Henry (Nick Robinson) and seems happy about it until they show up for a family ritual and he drops her down a pit as a sacrifice.
This is where Elodie’s happiness ends and the fight for her life begins. Almost immediately after being tossed in, a dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo) appears and tries to kill her. After a few narrow escapes and a nasty burn on her leg, she makes it to a point where she is seemingly safe. This is where she starts to piece everything together about what has happened and why she is down there. Lord Bayford shows back up to save his daughter which I was glad to see because I was worried they were wasting his talents by giving him such a small role. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work out for him as he is killed by the dragon.
Elodie escapes only to find out that her sister was taken and thrown in to be the sacrifice in her place. So, as more and more of her clothes are falling off or being used to assist her, she re-enters the dragon’s lair to confront it and save her sister. Personally, this is where I think the story took an odd turn. She tricks the dragon, then saves it, then uses it to kill everyone in that kingdom. Technically, they had it coming after what they did to her, but I thought that was a bit of a harsh turn on her part to take out more than just the people who were involved. Or perhaps, they are all involved and we are just supposed to assume that.
Either way, she gets her revenge, and instead of going back home or staying in the new kingdom where she would officially be part of the royal family because of her marriage to the prince and her being the only one left alive, she decides to travel the world and take the dragon with her. This ending had very big Game of Thrones vibes with all of the dragon stuff taking place. The story itself was fun and a different take on the fairy tale genre. However, it could have spotlighted it’s stars a little more as well as making it less predictable.
Overall, this is a good movie to share with the family. It wasn’t too scary for my clan, but more edge-of-your-seat type of stuff than anything else. The graphics are pretty good for something that’s mainly being released on a streaming service too. It’s worth the watch and I give it a 7 out of 10!
