Summary
-
Damsel’
s mixed reviews question the writing quality, despite an entertaining plot featuring Brown against a dragon. - Brown proves her ability to carry a movie despite criticism, as fans eagerly await next
Stranger Things
season. - Viewer reception for
Damsel
will ultimately decide success.
Netflix fantasy movie Damsel has felt the burn from its first wave of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown leads the all-star cast in a tale of dragons, princes, and the titular damsel, but while she is not in distress, several critics were.
Princess Elodie thinks she is marrying Prince Henry, but discovers she’s actually about to be sacrificed to a dragon, setting up a head-to-head battle with the fire-breather. Millie Bobby Brown stars in this Netflix original.
Release Date March 8, 2024
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writers Dan Mazeau
Format Streaming
Studio Netflix, PCMA Management and Productions
Damsel is the latest Netflix project for Brown, and as she heads towards the end of her journey as Eleven in Stranger Things, the actress will be relying on new movies and TV shows to fill out her time in the coming years. While she previously found success in the Enola Holmes movies, the new film seems like it could deliver a low point in the star’s career so to date. The plot finds a young woman destined to marry a handsome prince discovering that rather than living her life as a pampered princess, she is to be the Royal family’s sacrifice to a fearsome dragon.
The critical reception of Damsel has been a very mixed bag, although several of the most recent additions have seen the film’s overall score settle at 58%, at time of writing. Like several recent “made for streaming” movies, the main criticism is aimed at the quality of the film’s writing. The consensus suggests that “stale” dialogue and scripting that turns it into “a lousy romp obviously hatched by an algorithm,” mean that a lot have viewed the movie as one of Netflix’s more forgettable offerings despite Brown’s best efforts.
Damsel is Not a Complete Disaster
Despite the film currently sitting on a “rotten” score, the almost half-and-half split in opinions does suggest that there is still something good to be found in the movie. While even the positive reviews still bemoan the lack of character development and many missed opportunities, they also deem the story entertaining enough for those who do not want much more than see a resourceful female going up against a fire-breathing dragon in a piece of throwaway escapism.
Regardless of what critics think, viewers will get their say on the film soon enough as it arrived in selected theaters and on Netflix on March 8. In recent years, there has been a clear trend of streaming movies being huge crowd-pullers if not crowd-pleasers. Damsel could well be the next to fall into the same category as movies such as the Dwayne Johnson movie Red Notice, and many of Adam Sandler’s comedy offerings as part of his Netflix deal.
Related Netflix’s Damsel Shares One Thing in Common With Shrek It seems like Netflix’s new movie has a lot of things in common with the story of a green female ogre from a beloved children’s franchise.
Based on her past releases, Brown is unlikely to suffer too much from the roasting that Damsel has taken so far, and if anything, the actress is proving her ability to carry a movie, even if many of its production values are being called into question. Fans of the actress will no doubt jump on this stop-gap offering while awaiting the final season of Stranger Things to materialize, and that alone will ensure the film is much more successful in viewership terms than it has been in critical reviews.
Damsel
is available on Netflix now.
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