Ellian et le sortilège

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.

The story was new but didn't hold my attention. The starting of the story was not captivating, it started off very randomly.

They could have portrayed the struggles of the girl in a better way. Portraying her struggles through songs was more on happy side, it never showed the pain.

The shock for me (and shocking for the princess as well..lol) was the ending. I really didn't except an animation movie to talk about it. No child would want their family to go through that phase, and this director and production house decided it was a good thing to show kids about it. That is the disappointing thing for me.

But definitely, the overall plot of how darkness entangles a person's life and makes them monster is a great plot. If the plot revolved around the main idea, it would have been a great movie.

Wow, it's funny that I went from watching the best Netflix animated series in Arcane Season 2 to now watching one of their most average and forgettable animated movies in Spellbound (2024). Yeah, I wasn't that big of a fan of this movie, but I didn't hate it.

Positives for Spellbound (2024): The animation in the movie looks fantastic. I thought that Rachel Zegler was decent as the main character and while I have my criticisms toward some of the things that she's said, she was good in the movie. And finally, there are some good musical numbers in the movie.

Negatives for Spellbound (2024): This movie is just very forgettable and I am struggling to remember the plot of this movie. Also, why are Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem and John Lithgow doing here, their characters barely do anything in the movie except show up when the plot needs them the most. And finally, this movie has that generic Netflix atmosphere to it, to where I feel like I seen this type of movie from them too many times.

Overall, Spellbound (2024) is an animated movie that exists on Netflix and that's it. Maybe, some people are going to enjoy more than me, but this movie was just whatever for me.

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.