[Damsel Review Netflix] While the battle to defeat the dragon is predictable, the survival segments are quite entertaining!

Damsel  An original Netflix fantasy action film about a struggling young woman from a small town agrees to marry a prince from a powerful kingdom, unaware that she is being sacrificed to an ancient fire-breathing dragon. She must rely on her wits and whatever resources she has on hand to survive and escape the dragon’s clutches.  

Damsel Review (No spoilers)

This is a fantasy action film adapted from the novel of the same name by writer pen name Elana K. Arnold . She came up with a plot that is remarkably different from other mythological stories. Not only must the characters survive, but they also have to fight against a vicious fire-breathing dragon that the city has had to surrender to and make sacrificial offerings. Due to the story’s peculiarities, everything had to be set up logically. The heroine had to be strong from her established image, making actress Millie Bobby Brown truly well-suited for this role. She really helped carry this film more than the script that also tried very hard.

The film portrays the heroine living in a small, deprived town, having to gather firewood and find food to help feed the townspeople like an ordinary villager. Before her family receives a marriage proposal from a great kingdom. The story tries to show details that she is a strong woman not interested in this kind of marriage, but does it to help her people. This is followed by dialogue scenes of her riding with the prince, not to deceive the audience, but to create conversational scenes showing the heroine is more headstrong than ordinary women, having been interested in Maze since childhood. It sets up the legend of the dragon and the suspicions of the heroine’s stepmother that this marriage seems abnormal. All this story setup is to establish roles for these characters later, before the heroine gets tricked into becoming a human sacrifice within the first half hour.

The film proceeds as a lone survival storyline in the dragon’s lair, trying to utilize everything the heroine has on her along with the cave environment to survive this vicious dragon. And use logical way for each thing the heroine thinks of and does – like finding light in the dark cave, using pieces of her princess garments and equipment resourcefully. It leans on the story’s fantasy elements to fill in any contrivances, trying to make this survival portion as plausible as possible while also telling the backstories of previous princess victims who fell in together. Though there are some head-scratching oddities, the movie quickly moves past them. The actual cave entrapment is only in the first hour, focused on evading the dragon, before the remaining time is about going back to fight the dragon. This is the crucial highlight of how she will defeat this vicious beast. The script tries to find the most believable way for the audience by tying it to the dragon legend she discovers the truth of in this lair. But it’s not really a surprise since the story foreshadowed this from the start. The script just has the heroine belabor figuring it out for too long before utilizing it, This scene felt rather tedious and did not make the dragon’s defeat as exciting as the earlier portions where she was being hunted by the dragon. However, the movie still has a satisfying,revenge final act to make up for it, Even though this scene was a bit short.

The movie had impressive CGI for the dragon and beautiful visual scenes. The dragon’s menacing and fearsome image was done well. However, the negative was that they allowed the dragon to speak a lot, like an animated cartoon character. It’s understandable they did this so the writers didn’t have trouble conveying the dragon’s backstory, and mythical dragons often can speak. But by having it frequently communicate with the heroine, it had the opposite effect of reducing the dragon’s sense of threat and fearsomeness. Additionally, the dragon’s dialogue made it come across as not very intelligent. And it made the ending predictable for how the movie would resolve things.

An action-packed fantasy film where a lone survivor battles dragons, starring Millie Bobby Brown, delivers a highly enjoyable experience. Despite occasional plot flaws, they can be overlooked considering the entertaining use of fantasy elements. The CG work on the dragons is impressive, though their ability to speak may come off as peculiar, and the dialogue portrays as less intelligent. The film makes a strong effort to provide a satisfying conclusion, but it may not be as surprising as anticipated.

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