Spellbound

It would have been nice to know that this movie was mainly about divorce before sitting down with my family to enjoy a nice family movie.

The toddler enjoyed the first song or two, but she had lost interested by the midway point, definitely was not paying attention during the climax.

I say midway, but the pacing of this thing was all over the place, so I'm not really sure how far we were in or how long the movie was.. but at some point it took a turn and went from being a movie about a girl breaking the spell her parents are under (like Spirited Away) and dove straight into a "we need a divorce, but its not your fault" movie.

I didn't see anything about this in the marketing, although to be fair I don't know if I say any marketing besides a quick trailer.

It might not have been so bad if this movie hadn't also been so bad, I chuckled at a few throw away lines/sight gags, but that's about it. The plot was weak, the voice acting could have been better, and the animation felt off to me, but I can't quite describe what exactly. The lips didn't feel like they lined up right?

After 3 songs I could not even remember the melody of the first song. The story is forced and just try to follow the a storyline that is a mix of previous films. The characters are not developed and the animals are just a mix of different animals to make it look like fantasy, but it is just cheap script to try to captlize on other stories. The family was very disappointed with the story even if it is a adventure, there is too that is genuinely funny and lilte that iS original. Trying to make "Frozen" mixed with Pokémons is not very inovative. I couldn't make all of the kids sit through the whole movie.

While the animation and voice acting was great about half way through I got a sinking feeling that the movie was going to try and pivot hard into a topic that was both poorly suited for this vessel and potentially within the last 30 minutes. And of course it did but instead of being a something that could sufficiently be covered for the childhood audience in 30 minutes it was something much harder to adequately cover. Divorce.

I enjoy animated movies that contain some mature themes but this felt poorly done and the messages in the last few songs and scenes were plain awful messaging for an audience under 10.

The worst part of this is the deceptive omission of this movies content, advertised as a kids movie, but ultimately potentially harmful for children to view without parental input.

Really a shame because there is great talent in the cast and production.

A sweet film but more so an important topic! There are better animations such as The Wild Robot that also tackles a heavy topic, but I am glad animations like these exist for kids. Give it a chance!

The music is decent and the voice actors are okay, but showing that families do not operate in straight lines or are perfectly constructed, is probably more important for kids to see than an excellent animated production.

Let's celebrate more films like these that are courageous enough to tackle important topics and critique them less harshly. Your kids will enjoy this film and the parents will likely reflect on a few things they could do differently too.

This is a good movie, particularly for families navigating the challenges of divorce. At its core, this film is really about the emotional struggles and complexities that arise in such situations, especially for children. I do wish it had been marketed with this theme in mind, as it's not something we would have chosen as a family if we had known. However, it does provide an opportunity to explore and discuss a child's feelings of anger and confusion when caught between parents. That said, the movie is much heavier than what most viewers are likely expecting. While I enjoy musicals, the songs were unfortunately not very memorable and felt overly long, which detracted from the overall experience.