Ellian et le sortilège

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?

It's been a while since I've seen an animated movie with so many cheesy clichés. Teenage princesses in musicals breaking the fourth wall like it's a Nickelodeon show. After 20 minutes there were already at least 3 or 4 songs, which transform any non-Disney animated film into a bad imitation.

The plot is repetitive, boring, endless with irrelevant events that could have been omitted to leave this feature film at least in 90 minutes.

The final message is interesting, but the journey was too long and boring to pay it the attention it deserved. The visual aspects were good, but there are also details that look unfinished, to say the least.

In short, a forgettable film in the Netflix catalog.

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.

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.

This movie claims to be for kids, but the heavy focus on divorce feels out of place. Sure, kids' movies can tackle serious topics, but this just feels awkward.

The story components and settings are all over the place, like someone asked an AI to come up with a random plot and threw it on screen without bothering to connect anything. There's no real backstory. It's hard to care about the characters or their world.

The music? Completely forgettable. Nothing catchy, funny, or even worth admiring-it's just there.

In the end, it feels like a mediocre "B movie" with a big-budget animation makeover. The visuals might be nice, but the rest of it falls flat. Definitely not worth your time. Not a top 100 kids movie, not even one of the better ones on Netflix let alone anywhere else. Definitely don't plan a family movie night around this.