Movie Thoughts: Damsel (2024)

• Released: March 8, 2024
  
• Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
• Running time: 1 h 50 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A girl is sacrificed to a dragon and must find a way to survive while discovering the lies and deceit that led to her and the dragon's situation.

My Thoughts

Overall I thought this movie was...fine. Just fine. If you want an epic fantasy flick, you'll probably get something out of it, but do keep in mind it's not a very grandiose one. The movie mostly takes place in two settings (the castle of the new kingdom Elodie arrives at and the dragon's caves) and this is very much a conflict involving few people, not large armies. This is not a story about big epic wars and stuff like that.

And for being a smaller scale project it still does things well. The acting is good, I like the overall idea of the story, the characters are fine and the dragon has a cool design.

Now for the things I don't like as much. One, the writing. It just didn't feel particularly strong to me. The overall story I'm okay with but it just didn't feel too great writing-wise. Especially with the weird plothole that the dragoness supposedly only wants three princesses dead, when she has clearly killed a lot more before Elodie. The caves she lives in are littered with dead princess bodies, way more than three. Elodie is supposed to be "the third" but honestly it feels more like she's "the twelfth" which just makes no sense, with three being the explicitly stated number in the film. And that aside, I also thought the character writing and the pacing could've been improved on. Elodie is a fine character but she could've been written stronger if you ask me. 

Second is the visuals. While the dragon looks good, the visuals on the environments can be a bit disappointing. Particularly on the castle. You can just tell that it's CGI and not really there. The sets look fine and all, but when you see the castle as a whole in a wide shot or something it just looks very fake. 

Finally, I just think it's weird the dragon's lost eye magically ends up re-spawning? Sometime during her fight with the dragon, Elodie takes out the beast's right eye. But then in a later scene it's just back? And don't give me the "oh the healing slugs fixed it" excuse, we've only been shown that the healing slugs can fix damaged skin, but at no point was it established that they can bring back entire missing organs. So for the eye to be magically fixed with no explanation just feels cheap and lazy.

Overall I think this is a fine movie and if you just want a simple fantasy story with a dragon you can probably get something out of it, but I wouldn't exactly call it good or anything. It's fine, that's the most I can give it.