Damsel

I expected Damsel to be a typical, absolutely terrible Netflix woke agitprop. But fortunately, the result wasn’t that disastrous... Millie Bobby Brown has grown into a beauty. And thankfully, she doesn’t rely just on that. Her acting is among the better of the young Hollywood generation. Visually, it’s decent. Occasionally, the CGI is weak, but the main attraction, the dragon, works perfectly. Its design is excellent; I haven’t seen such an original dragon in a film for a long time... I’m a bit disappointed that the initial trailer revealed the main spoiler. If the creators had kept that as a surprise for the audience, it would have been better, in my opinion. Otherwise, the ending is predictably fairy tale-like (unfortunately). For me, it’s a passable light watch that manages to entertain. It offers a few genuinely top-notch scenes. 6/10. (2024-03-25)

Dracarys. An enjoyable and mainly imaginative TV fairy tale about a dragon, which turns into a survival thriller where everything is saved by glow worms. Millie Bobby Brown plays the princess in distress brilliantly and manages to convince you that she's a damsel in distress under all that makeup. The visual effects are pretty average, but it is saved by the awesome atmospheric music, which adds that extra star. (2024-03-10)

While not particularly exceptional, still a fine fantasy adventure that has a climax, a likeable heroine, and a totally, totally, totally great dragon by Patrick Tatopoulos. Among other monsters, he once designed, for example, Emmerich's Godzilla, and it's clear he still knows his craft, this dragon is no B-movie monster, but a real character with a very scary face. (2024-03-10)

Damsel is an incredibly naive and at times silly fantasy film, but it makes up for it with its inventiveness, unusual idea and above all very watchable choice of subject matter. Yeah, sacrificing young girls to a dragon to keep a centuries-long peace is something we haven't seen here before, and when you throw in some really nifty details, the fun of the whole cave, and even the inoffensive ending, I don't think I've seen many more audience-appealing things in a while. Unfortunately this is all a little brought down to average by the fact that the characters behave a little too stupidly in places and also by the overall predictability, but I still have to give the film some praise, because for a classic Netflix movie, I found it utterly engaging, I even broke a sweat in places and unexpectedly got one very good, heart-attack attack inducing scare. (2024-03-10)

To be honest, given the lukewarm reviews here (but also on Imdb), I thought Damsel would be a generic film, but after watching it, I have to say that it was a pleasant surprise for me personally. Damsel has a nice visual design and its atmosphere (but also partly the story) reminded me more than once to Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Robin Wright looks like Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug . The terrifying looks of the dragoness were very good, and so was the voice acting, and the backstory she added to the gloomy atmosphere of this seemingly fairy-tale film, which was more of a fantastic survival drama, with more than one person being burned alive. As a result, I would have given the film three and a half stars, but since enjoyed it, I'll give it a weaker four. (2024-04-01)