Movie Thought: Rebellious (2024)

• Released: October 11, 2024
• Directed by: Alex Tsitsilin
• Running time: 1h 34min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

When Princess Mina gets kidnapped by an evil wizard, her boyfriend Ronan goes after her to rescue her. But he's not the only one who wants to save her: three potential other suitors want to save her as well. Will Mina be rescued and get together with her one true love?

My Thoughts

Movie I did not have high expectations for going in and it was...fine, honestly. It wasn't very good, it wasn't too bad, either. It was just kind of mid.

I think the biggest flaw of this movie is really that it just doesn't feel like it was executed competently. From everything, the posters to the title to the marketing to just the general plot and writing, it's obvious what this movie is trying to do. It wants to borrow a lot of elements from 2010s Disney movies. Think movies like Tangled, Frozen, Moana and Brave. It wants to have the fairy tale story with a strong and competent princess as lead, but it also wants to be clever (or at least, it's trying to be) and break the fourth wall or point out obvious tropes once every while.

And while I'm not the biggest fan of this type or writing, in the Disney movies I mentioned, I at least these tropes work for the most part. In this movie...it's just handled incompetently. It is definitely trying to be clever and having the princess lead, but then at the same time it just kinda fails. For example, despite trying to portray Mina as a heroine who can handle her own, the fact is that for most of the movie she still has to be rescued by a man. 

The movie starts out with Mina trying to be more independent and progressive, but for most of the rest of the movie she's just kinda sitting around waiting to be rescued. Yes, she has a few scenes where she helps to rescue others or has some "clever" lines, but in the end she still constantly ends up in a damsel-in-distress role. Honestly, this movie is more about Ronan and his journey to rescue Mina than it is about Mina herself. She's more of a plot device to get the story going than a three-dimensional character who can handle herself.

The title is also a bit of a lie. None of the characters are really all that rebellious (except the villain, I guess). The marketing is clearly hinting at Mina being the rebellious one, but like I said she doesn't really do all that much that's noteworthy and especially not rebellious. Sure, she mentions a few times that she wants to marry her boyfriend and that she wants to rule her own kingdom as queen, but she never really is a true rebel or anything. So I just don't get this movie's marketing trying to make her out to be the rebellious heroine of this story when most of the time she's just in need of being rescued and doesn't do that much herself (except for freeing a few princesses).

The visuals of the movie are...varying. I will give it one thing: The character designs are very nice. I could easily see these in a high-budget Disney movie. They're generally high-quality and well-structured and they just look good. The animation in the more mellow dialogue scenes is also very good.

Where I do think the animation is worse, though, is the action scenes, or scenes that require fast pacing. Something about the animation just feels painfully slow in these scenes and during these movements. Like they lack an "oomph" and are just not snappy enough. The animation does work well in the talking scenes, but for movements like a character falling over or a fight scene or a character being punched you need quick moves with actual impact to them. And that was just really lacking here, in multiple scenes. It just looked kinda bad, not gonna lie. The animation is by no means terrible, but the action scenes could legit be done a whole lot better.

Another thing I don't really like is how the character of Nahina, an evil sorceress who aids the main villain, is basically reduced to being a villain because she didn't like a love spell being placed on her. Love spells and love potions in media are always very tricky to me, because in the end it comes down to them basically being comparable to date-rape drugs, with the character being forced into loving another character with all the consequences this entails. Nahina suffered from being put under a love spell, and once she realized this she grew furious and became an evil sorceress. And the movie (throughout most of it) really vilifies her for this, and the guy who cast the spell on her, Finn, is meanwhile seen as this funny jovial guy who everyone (except Nahina) likes.

And this just...kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I guess I get what they're going for with her arc, the fact that love will in the end conquer hate if it's real and genuine and strong, but man, the execution just fails. The fact that we're supposed to see Finn as this nice funny guy when basically he used date-rape drugs on Nahina and is the reason for her going down a path of villainy. And the fact that we're vilifying the victim in this case. In the end she does get redeemed, but that doesn't change the fact that throughout 95% of the movie she's seen as a terrible villain while everybody treats Finn very well.

That said, I did really like some of the characters. Bjorn the bear was a really nice and supportive sidekick, and the same can be said for Fa Chan. They're probably the best elements of the film if you ask me.

I guess the main part of the movie, Ronan's journey of going from a bookworm to a hero, is genuinely pretty good. Not great and a bit generic, but it has a nice execution. When the movie isn't trying to copy Disney's 2010s style of writing movies and is instead just trying to be its own thing, straightforward, it's pretty competent at times. But a lot of the movie does have those trying-to-be-clever writing tropes. And that really brings it down for me.

Something can also be said about the marketing really pushing the "Mina is a rebellious heroine" agenda when in reality she mostly just sits around waiting to be rescued by various other male characters. Like, that just kinda feels antithetical to the message the marketing is trying to push.

Just for the record, I don't have an issue with a more traditional fairy tale-like story where the woman has to be rescued by a man once in a blue moon, especially when executed well. I do prefer movies with proactive heroines where the gender roles are more balanced, but I don't mind the more traditional structure of stories like this from time to time. But when basically all the marketing, down to the movie's title, is really trying to push how Mina is proactive and a heroine, and then in the end the movie is just about her needing to be rescued by various more competent male characters, it just feels antithetical to the marketing and all. Kinda like lying, to be honest. 

If they just wanted this to be a straightforward story about Ronan rescuing Mina I wouldn't have an issue with that. Sure, it'd probably include some dated gender roles, but that doesn't have to mean the movie is instantly bad. But the fact that the marketing is basically lying by saying this is Mina's story where she is the heroine (it's not), that's where I have an issue.

So yeah. A movie with potential but a kinda mediocre-ish execution. Not bad but could be so much better.