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Flora and Ulysses Movie Review

Flora and Ulysses is a 2021 family superhero comedy film directed by Lena Khan and starring Matilda Lawler. It is a pretty solid family flick coming from Disney.

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“Cynics are people who are afraid to believe“

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Flora, a 10-year-old girl with an imaginative mind, rescues a squirrel and names him Ulysses. She soon discovers that Ulysses is blessed with superpowers. Based on a book, the movie has that imaginative quality to it with a lot of meticulous details that could only have come from a book, so I really liked that as I prefer more immediate details in my movies.

The problem with this movie is that it stumbles after the first stellar act and it only gets worse toward the end. I still quite liked it, but it could have been better executed in its second half. The beginning is so wonderful in the protagonist’s cute and cynical inner monologues, the first squirrel scenes are adorable and the energy is palpable, but the second half lost all of that and became a bit tiresome in its expected family drama and boring, one-note villains.

I did dislike most characters introduced in later parts, especially the cartoony villain, but the mother is great and her writer’s block and her marriage issues are well explored. Seeing Alyson Hannigan after many years that she hasn’t appeared in anything notable was surprising and quite a welcome sight. She’s good here, but the protagonist is the highlight of the movie.

I loved Ulysses and how adorable he is. Some of his slapstick scenes are hilarious and perfectly childlike without being too silly and annoying, but just the right amount of sweetly goofy. But as I have said already, Flora is the best part of the movie. Matilda Lawler is just terrific in the main role and the mix of cynicism and imagination in this child is very interesting. She is both instantly relatable and immensely sweet, not to mention funny in some very amusing lines.

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Flora and Ulysses does have great dialogue and the fact that Disney owns Marvel now has resulted in the film referencing many iconic Marvel characters in that biting first scene. The CGI on the squirrel is actually very strong for the most part, but the action should have been more interesting for a superhero movie and the movie needed more adventurous elements for sure.