I've always been a fan of Dreamworks thanks to the Shrek movies. But seeing Ruby Gillman was the first time seeing a Dreamworks movie in a theater. And overall, it's okay to T.
The story is basically the coming of age of 15 year old Ruby Gillman who is a kraken but has to keep that a secret. She wants to ask out her crush to prom but a mishap has her unlock her kraken powers which was what her mother so desperately tried to keep hidden from her. This is as far as I'll go as I don't want to spoil it.
It's an okay story, the prom aspect isn't very interesting but Ruby going on her journey of learning her abilities and growing into herself was nice. However the story never pushed itself beyond the standard cliches we've seen in stories like this, like embarrassing yourself and having everyone in school knowing about it, awkward and disastrous attempt at asking out a crush, annoying sibling, embarrassing parents who may be hiding a secret and et. None of this is bad mind you but it wasn't given any real twist or surprise, all very average and plain, which is rather a shame as the characters and the world had lots of potential. But I will say the twist for the villain got me by surprise so there's that at least.
Ruby Gillman her self is a very likable lead who's journey is quite complicated but again nothing that we haven't see before. Her friends are your typical dorky goofy and embarrassing friends you've seen in literally every teen themed comedy. Her parents are your typical embarrassing but loving parents. Her brother is your typical annoying pest. While none of the characters are bad, they're just average. You've seen them before and this movie never goes beyond their typical cliches and tropes.
What isn't average however is the animation. I haven't watched any recent Dreamworks movie within the last few years and I'm happy to say the animation in this movie is the BIG highlight. When Ruby transforms into her true form underwater and glows and uses her powers it's very bright, colorful and flashy. Ruby, her family and the other kraken in the movie are all well designed and endearing. The non-kraken characters such as her friends and the background characters are more of a mixed bag. Some of them look okay while others look a bit strange to be honest. For example Ruby's friend Trevin, his head is too small for his rather large body, while on the other hand Chelsea was designed to be totally beautiful and they succeeded with flying colors.
The town the movie takes place looks cool, clearly they had a lot of fun designing everything though I will say that it does give the film a very babyish look, which was the intention I presume as this movie feels like kids are it's main audience. The underwater scenes were done very well as when Ruby first goes in there they perfectly show how deep and freaky the ocean gets the more deeper you get, but once Ruby turns giant it becomes much more inviting. So besides some of the weird characters designs the animation as a whole shows that Dreamwroks has not lost their touch and like Pixar and Disney are only getting better with their animation quality.
So overall this is just okay. I didn't regret watching it, I didn't hate it nor did I really like it. It was just okay, perfectly okay. The characters were reasonably likable, the script was fine the animation was great, and overall it was one of those movies that I couldn't really find anything to hate. It seems to me that Dreamworks is mostly focusing on the little kids these days with the Trolls and The Boss Baby movies which is why the fell off the radar for me. And while I liked Ruby Gillman I will admit I did count the minutes at times as I just didn't find the conflict or characters all that compelling. It was all likable, but it was all been there done that, nothing I haven't seen before and I was disappointed they didn't aspire to make this movie anything more but just okay. I definitely see kids especially little girls liking this movie and Ruby will no doubt have a fan following, I just hope that if they decide to bring her back if this movie does well, that they give her a more compelling story to tell as what's here doesn't really make her stand out.
And that's a shame.
The story is basically the coming of age of 15 year old Ruby Gillman who is a kraken but has to keep that a secret. She wants to ask out her crush to prom but a mishap has her unlock her kraken powers which was what her mother so desperately tried to keep hidden from her. This is as far as I'll go as I don't want to spoil it.
It's an okay story, the prom aspect isn't very interesting but Ruby going on her journey of learning her abilities and growing into herself was nice. However the story never pushed itself beyond the standard cliches we've seen in stories like this, like embarrassing yourself and having everyone in school knowing about it, awkward and disastrous attempt at asking out a crush, annoying sibling, embarrassing parents who may be hiding a secret and et. None of this is bad mind you but it wasn't given any real twist or surprise, all very average and plain, which is rather a shame as the characters and the world had lots of potential. But I will say the twist for the villain got me by surprise so there's that at least.
Ruby Gillman her self is a very likable lead who's journey is quite complicated but again nothing that we haven't see before. Her friends are your typical dorky goofy and embarrassing friends you've seen in literally every teen themed comedy. Her parents are your typical embarrassing but loving parents. Her brother is your typical annoying pest. While none of the characters are bad, they're just average. You've seen them before and this movie never goes beyond their typical cliches and tropes.
What isn't average however is the animation. I haven't watched any recent Dreamworks movie within the last few years and I'm happy to say the animation in this movie is the BIG highlight. When Ruby transforms into her true form underwater and glows and uses her powers it's very bright, colorful and flashy. Ruby, her family and the other kraken in the movie are all well designed and endearing. The non-kraken characters such as her friends and the background characters are more of a mixed bag. Some of them look okay while others look a bit strange to be honest. For example Ruby's friend Trevin, his head is too small for his rather large body, while on the other hand Chelsea was designed to be totally beautiful and they succeeded with flying colors.
The town the movie takes place looks cool, clearly they had a lot of fun designing everything though I will say that it does give the film a very babyish look, which was the intention I presume as this movie feels like kids are it's main audience. The underwater scenes were done very well as when Ruby first goes in there they perfectly show how deep and freaky the ocean gets the more deeper you get, but once Ruby turns giant it becomes much more inviting. So besides some of the weird characters designs the animation as a whole shows that Dreamwroks has not lost their touch and like Pixar and Disney are only getting better with their animation quality.
So overall this is just okay. I didn't regret watching it, I didn't hate it nor did I really like it. It was just okay, perfectly okay. The characters were reasonably likable, the script was fine the animation was great, and overall it was one of those movies that I couldn't really find anything to hate. It seems to me that Dreamworks is mostly focusing on the little kids these days with the Trolls and The Boss Baby movies which is why the fell off the radar for me. And while I liked Ruby Gillman I will admit I did count the minutes at times as I just didn't find the conflict or characters all that compelling. It was all likable, but it was all been there done that, nothing I haven't seen before and I was disappointed they didn't aspire to make this movie anything more but just okay. I definitely see kids especially little girls liking this movie and Ruby will no doubt have a fan following, I just hope that if they decide to bring her back if this movie does well, that they give her a more compelling story to tell as what's here doesn't really make her stand out.
And that's a shame.