Kids’ film review: Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken

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Published on Friday, 30 June 2023 11:25

Last Updated on 29 June 2023

ranjeetpanesar

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London Mums Magazine‘s young reporters attended an early multimedia screening of Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken at ODEON Luxe, Leicester Square. Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken will be released in UK cinemas on 5th July 2023.

Teenage Kraken takes a humorous, well written but ultimately light approach to the challenges which we face when we reach the age of awkwardness. Ruby Gillman, a teenager with all the problems of teenage years, is also a Kraken. And she’s a Kraken with a crush.

The  story

Sometimes the hero you are meant to be lies just beneath the surface. This summer, DreamWorks Animation dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy, sweet and awkward high school student, Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise), who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed.

 

 

The verdict

The strict instruction that she stay out of the water is disobeyed and suddenly everything we knew about our friends beneath the waves is confronted. Krakens are not, as we believed from Pirates of the Caribbean, angry and violent mermaids, as pretty as every film from Splash to the Little Mermaid, are not benevolent beauties whose purpose in life is to be charming.

The plot rolls out in highly entertaining fashion and everything ties itself together in a surprisingly neat conclusion.

There is a sense that it’s all tied up too quickly and too neatly and that some of the issues raised would have supported a longer film but it’s beautifully animated, superbly casted and there’s an attention to detail which makes watching this film more than once advisable. It’s ostensibly a teenage crush movie but the real value is likely to lie, for both parents and offspring, in the exploration of mothers and daughters struggling to see the world from the others’ perspective.

It’s a fun adventure which skips over much which could have been explored and will appeal to all ages.

London Mums’ rating: 8/10

The trailer