Latest Brown vehicle a fun but f lawed fantasy
Damsel (13+, 109 mins) Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo Reviewed by ***
As the opening title card informs us: There are many stories where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress – this is not one ofthem. Yes, clearly designed as another chance for Stranger Things and Enola Holmes’ Millie Bobby Brown to flex her Netflix pulling power, Damsel is a fantasyadventure fuelled by its feminist twist on typical tropes.
But while it certainly boasts plenty of thrills and spills, moments of derring-do and some surprisingly gruesome visuals, there’s also an overwhelming sense of deja vu.
In a faraway land, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone) is facing a crisis. His people are freezing and starving and even selling his heirloom tapestries and castle’s drapes isn’t going to see them through to the thaw. His only – heart-wrenching – option is to marry off his eldest daughter Elodie (Brown).
Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright) of the island of Aurea believes Elodie would be a suitable match for her son Henry (Nick Robinson), promising that Bayford would get all the riches he needs in return.
While not exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of marriage, Elodie believes that her freedom would be a small price to pay for a union that will save her people. She just hopes that Henry is kind and well-read.
But although the pair hit it off and the wedding takes place without a hitch, things quickly go pear-shaped for Elodie when she’s whisked off to be part of an ancient ceremony in the mountains. While billed as a rite that honours the ancestors of Aurea, it rapidly becomes clear that Elodie is the latest in a long line of sacrifices designed to appease a dragon so it doesn’t carry out its long-held threat to lay the land to waste.
What follows is a mostly appealing, occasionally pulse-raising, if not entirely original (as our winged antagonist wryly laments, “the story always ends the same”) or engrossing mix of Joe Versus the Volcano, The Descent, The Goonies, Game of Thrones and Dragonheart.
Brown is certainly a spirited hero, convincing in the action scenes and levelling up (as her dress deteriorates from elegant gown to Milla Jovovich-in-Resident Evil-esque attire), as the peril and stakes increase.
But although Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog, The Flight Attendant) is an inspired choice to voice the furious firebreather, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s (28 Weeks Later) film really does waste powerhouse performers Wright and Angela Bassett in decidedly one-dimensional roles.