My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Friendship Games

'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' is in my opinion one of the best animated shows in recent years. The first film based on it 'Equestria Girls' was an enormous disappointment and the complete anti-thesis in quality as one could get. Was apprehensive about watching its first sequel 'Rainbow Rocks' but was both pleasantly surprised and very impressed.

'Friendship Games' is a decent third instalment in the 'My Little Pony: Equestria Girls' film series. It is a step down from 'Rainbow Rocks' and is nowhere near as good as 'Friendship is Magic', but it is much better than the 'Equestria Girls' film (then again many things are better than that, and it takes a lot for any of its sequels to be as bad or worse). Its flaws are at least different to 'Equestria Girls', not being the "having the same flaws and amplifying them" sort of sequel.

It could have been much better. It has to be said though that there are a couple of improvements over 'Rainbow Rocks'. There is no forced or awkwardly written romance. Twilight is much more consistently written and is more developed and likable. And Flash isn't quite as bland. 'Friendship Games' does suffer from trying to do too much, there are too many characters and too many plot strands.

While the characters are fun and likable (though Flash is still a bit on the bland side, though not as much as before, and Principal Cinch is agreed too one note), the only characters that develop are Twilight and Sunset Shimmer. The film certainly isn't dull and the conflicts and dynamics are interesting, but some plot strands are better explored than others with a few under-explored and messily handled.

There could have been much more focus on the games too. The games themselves are very exciting, but happen too late in the film and the screen time for them is too short.

However, the animation is vibrant, ethereal and well-rounded, like 'Friendship is Magic' and 'Rainbow Rocks' and unlike 'Equestria Girls', with character designs that are appealing and don't send warning signs about potential bad messaging. The songs aren't quite as good as in 'Rainbow Rocks' but are still catchy and cheerful, they're easy to hum along to and the lyrics aren't too cheesy.

Much of the writing is fine too. Like 'Rainbow Rocks', there is a good balance of humour and emotion, with winning and amusing humour and poignant and never schmaltzy or mawkish emotion. The references are clever and naturally integrated and the messages are well-meaning and heartfelt and avoid being preachy.

Story here has its messy moments but still moves along nicely and it doesn't feel like an extended TV episode. Twilight and Sunset Shimmer are well realised characters, love what the sequels have done with the latter, and of the newer characters Sugarcoat (hilariously personality-wise the complete opposite of her name) is a sheer delight.

Voice acting is very strong, no talent wastes here. Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball and Rachel Shoichet are particularly good.

Although, decent second sequel but could have been better. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The stinger for the last movie set up this sequel as it showed what was going on with the Twilight from their own dimension. What's interesting about this film is that we're introduced to this new Twilight and it does feel like we're meeting the same character, but in a different way. It didn't go in anyway how I thought it would be. I assumed it would just be the same as them meeting the Twilight from the Equestria dimension. Only very briefly do we see any ponies in this movie at all. The animation is as wonderful as ever.

Yes, I do believe this to be better than "My Little Pony: The Movie". The best part is easily the climax and how strong the emotions are. It's weird to describe the villain in this movie because there really quite isn't one. It's mostly just misunderstood people and that really makes for a better plot. It can get boring, but it's still a rewarding movie. I'm proud to have ended TV Month and now I can do my next theme month...Channel Awesome Month to celebrate the website's tenth anniversary! ***

This movie was horrible!

-Lots of exposition, exposition, rush it out ASAP! -With a 70-minute runtime, there's just not enough time to introduce an entire second school and still have time to give the Wondercolts spotlight. -Terrible "villains". With the exception of Midnight Sparkle (who's only on the screen for around two minutes), they do not have the coolness factor that other MLP villains and most Disney villains have. In fact, Cinch's plan to use Sci-Twi in the Friendship Games backfires so epically it almost gets the world destroyed. -The Friendship Games put untrained students in mortal peril. Motocross and archery have a high risk of injury, if not death. Plus no one bats an eye when the giant Piranha Plant attacks the stadium. -Dean Cadence is UGLY! -The HuMane 5 are still as flanderized as ever! Thank Celestia the 2017 movie won't be Equestria Girls-related, as the true Mane 7 had an entire show to be fleshed out. -Shining Armor has no more than two lines, and never shows up again. What a wasted character! -The final battle lasts only a few seconds. -Just Eat Gilligan: Twilight, why are you keeping that magic-stealing pendant around when it's clearly hurting people! Without it, you could have avoided this plot. NO ONE in your school has no idea how magic works. Is it any surprise that it goes out of control and almost destroys the world? -The Shadowbolts are one-dimensional and can be summed up in a single small sentence each: an ostentatious athletic girl, a brutally honest girl, a sarcastically nice but really passive aggressive girl, a girl who's really passionate about music and sort of outgoing if you could call it that, and then another one I don't even remember. You should be able to know who's called Sugarcoat and who's called Sour Sweet. That's how memorable they are. -Please get smarter about raising the stakes. -Very slow movie.

Avoid this movie. Watch Finding Dory instead. (It climaxes better than the entire FG movie.)

This review contains some spoilers

I think this movie was creepy in a terrifying manner. It is a MLP version of Milgram experiment on Twilight, a perfectly good and well intended person cracking under peer pressure and doing things against her personal moral code.

Also the outburst of Sunset Shimmer toward Twilight was something. Typical frustration nonthinking outburst (we all do from time to time) doing irreparable damage to a weaken confused and depressed mind.

This movie is very dark in all significant places regardless of its shiny and colorful presentation.

This movie for me have left other 2 in the dust. Well done HASBRO.

I understand AppleTV+ is the highest of the high with 4K HDR 60fps with Dolby Atmos surround sound, so I'm comparing this to other non AppleTV+ films, but the frame rate is way too low, it feels like 24fps, maybe it is, it makes me feel sick because of this and the fact the character's motion is really off, other things about the film are great but not enough to get it above a solid 6.