Miraculous: Le Storie di Ladybug e Chat Noir - Il Film

So I'll say first off, as the brother of two younger sisters who are (along with me) huge miraculous fans, we all thouroughly enjoyed this movie. It's a heavily abridged version of the show's story, but on its own it's a great movie (with absolutely INCREDIBLE animation) and it in many ways delivers on the promises that the show has failed to deliver over the last couple years.

All that being said, I do recommend watching this movie twice: once in your own language and once in french, because this IS a musical, and the songs sound INFINITELY better in their native language.

TLDR: Good Movie!

The movie is okay to watch, the animation is definitely stunning. But the plot felt so, so bad. Everything felt so rushed and not well thought out. It didn't feel like we were following a timeline, instead it just felt like a recap of the show. Especially with jumping over all of those fights in the middle. And the songs definitely didn't help either. They felt so trashy and bad, almost like an info dump. They were only there to tell a story the movie couldn't show.

Overall all, it's a kids movie, so you really shouldn't have high expectations. But still, too rushed and all over the place for my taste.

I went into this movie with very high expectations after seeing the beautiful animation in all the trailers. But, while i was watching it, I was just underwhelmed. Everyone seems to have an issue with the songs, but I thought they were pretty good. My issue was all the skips. I understand It's hard to fit the premise of an entire show into a movie but it was definitely rushed. 1. Plagg wasn't even introduced until way later (and he was introduced by farting?) 2. Adrien didn't really have a reason to have the miraculous... he didn't save anyone. 3. the powers weren't explained at all, the cataclysm basically came out of nowhere.. Adrien and Gabriel don't really seem to have any relationship either, they have like 5 minutes on screen together minus the ending. And the scene switching was a mess. After Ladybug left when Cat was about to kiss her, it just cut to a 3 second clip of him staring at the Eifel tower, then it cut to another scene? In my opinion, the whole plot seems rushed and new viewers who have never seen the show are definitely going to be confused.

A film based on a popular animated series in French, as someone who is not familiar with the lore, it felt very compact, easy to digest and had a good time watching it.

In terms of the cast, obviously, Ladybug / Marinette and Cat Noir / Adrien are the ones that carried the film whole through. Through sequences and their actions, Marinette is shown to be a shy and clumsy girl who continues to doubt herself due to her fears. And as the film progressed, it's very easy to connect with her. As for Adrien, he is charming and relatable because he too also has personal problems but related to his father. Knowing that they are the core of the movie, it is no doubt that they are filled with personalities and you can't help but feel their pairing - and they are made for one another. So long as they believe and work together, nothing can really stand in there way and that's what makes them worth rooting for - from teamwork, friendship and eventually love.

When it comes to the genre aspect of the film, the musical, for the most part, was surprisingly good. Granted, considering the original series was not, some may find it corny at times. But this reviewer found it to be really great to listen to. Out of the eight songs played in the film, seven if not including the show's theme song, three stood out as the best. Two were solos, one by Marinette and the other by Adrien and the third one when they sang it as a duo - which was very romantic. There is this one song though, that is so popular, it was so surprising that it was used in the film.

Animation-wise, unlike the series that has not-so-fluid animation, considering that it is a feature-length film, it is more smooth to look at alongside the voice acting that was really great as expected.

As for the story, it was able to flesh out the characters and didn't really need a lot of exposition to do so. Even though the film feels very rushed in order to get from point A to B, it's really hard not to enjoy the ride. Just to add, there were certain sequences, particularly in the second act, that felt very similar to other films such as Smurfs 2, Ghostbusters (2016) and Hercules - if you see it then you will understand. It's also nice to mention the Sailor Moon vibes such as the transformation as well as the typical villains. The final act, while it could have been a lot better and impactful, felt satisfying by the end. It could have stopped there but seems like there are plans for another film.

Overall, it's hard for this reviewer to dislike the film. It was fun, charming and an innocent film. Despite its cheesiness, the core of the film, Marinette and Adrien, just made the movie work because of their friendship and romance. As someone who is just a casual fan or have little to no idea about the lore at all, it was a really good time watching Miraculous: Ladybug and Cat Noir, The Movie.

Those who are upset about it being a musical and it not aligning with the shows have not been paying attention the last 3 years of updates. They told us from the beginning it was a musical and that it wouldn't align with the shows storyline, so those placing bad reviews on that just didn't pay attention. But overall this film exceeded my expectations. The soundtrack is just beautiful. Especially Courage in Me. Phenomenal. The romantic tension was there and was beautiful. I will say I'm am very sad to see Ce Mur Qui Nous Sépare was not in it, but the rest of the soundtrack really made up for that. Jeremy did a phenomenal job with listening to what the fans want. I'm looking forward to a sequel 🤞