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Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken Movie Review

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a 2023 animated family fantasy film directed by Kirk DeMicco. It is one of DreamWorks Animation’s most mediocre outings.

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“It’s time to go big!“

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A shy adolescent learns that she comes from a fabled royal family of legendary sea krakens and that her destiny lies in the depths of the waters, which is bigger than she could have ever imagined. Needless to say, this movie coming after ‘Luca’ and especially ‘Turning Red’ felt particularly familiar and basically a rehash of those same ideas of teenagers growing up into monsters.

It’s one of those animated flicks that trudge along on a highly predicable, boring path that every single plot beat was not only expected, but also hugely tiresome and uninteresting. So, the storyline is stealing from Pixar, but what about the villain? The villain turns out to be the character who was previously a friend to the protagonist, which is what most Disney villains are like today. It’s unfortunate that this annoying trope from Disney was included here.

The voice acting is admittedly pretty good, but the characters left a lot to be desired. It’s a female-centric movie that refuses to include any interesting male characters for sure, but even the women are not great here, mostly constituting archetypes. The kraken was an interesting choice for an animated film, but unfortunately they failed to utilize them properly as the character designs were quite off-putting and odd.

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But the animation is otherwise pretty good as Ruby Gillman looks beautiful in those underwater action sequences in particular. The colorful palette, solidly detailed places and fine world building are all the positive qualities that this movie possessed, but it just wasn’t enough to save it from a tiresome plot and even more mediocre and clichéd dialogue. The soundtrack is also too modern and the pacing overly brisk. By this point DreamWorks has become stale and it is in desperate need of restructuring and refocusing on more original instead of rehashed ideas.