Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
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| Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"The sea will always need a kraken, and a kraken will always answer the call."
— Grandmamah | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a 2023 American computer-animated action-comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures . The film was directed by KirkDemicco, with Faryn Pearl as co-director and written by Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown & Eliott DiGuiseppi. The film was released on June 30, 2023, to mixed reviews.
Plot
Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible. She's math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, Ralph Breaks the Internet), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and she's prevented from hanging out with the cool kids at the beach because her over-protective supermom (Oscar nominee Toni Collette, Knives Out), has forbade Ruby from ever getting in the water. But when she breaks her mom's #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Academy Award-winner Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas. The Kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids who have been battling with the Kraken for eons. There's one major, and immediate, problem with that: The school's beautiful, popular new girl, Chelsea (Emmy winner Annie Murphy, Schitt's Creek) just happens to be a mermaid. Ruby will ultimately need to embrace who she is and go big to protect those she loves most.
Good Qualities
- The concept of a teenager finding out she is a giant kraken is very interesting and is executed extremely well.
- The writing by Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown, and Elliott DiGuiseppi is pretty great.
- The characters are pretty likable, such as:
- Ruby Gillman is a high school student and is pretty relatable. She loves her mother, brother, and father, has a crush on a boy named Connor, and desperately tries to fit in with the other kids at a fictional high school named Oceanside High. She doesn't listen to her mother about going in the water, decides to do so anyways, finds out she is a Kraken and is going on the news, and with help from Grandmamah, she must save her hometown and defeat Chelsea.
- Agatha Gillman is Ruby and Sam's mother, she works as a real estate agent, is married to Arthur Gillman, and is overprotective. She does not allow Ruby Gillman to go to the prom on the boat with her friends (though Ruby disobeys her mother), and helps her daughter, and Grandmama, to defeat Chelsea Van Der Zee.
- Chelsea Van Der Zee is a mermaid who hides as a human and is also narcissistic, selfish, and vain, with her thinking the world revolves around her, is a "Little Miss Perfect" character, and is a new student at Ocean High School. She and Ruby become friends, with her using Ruby to get the trident, and her eventually betraying her.
- Uncle Brill is Ruby's cousin, and he provides a lot of great comedy in this film.
- Arthur Gillman is Ruby Gillman's dad, he is nice, caring, can be a little embarrassing to Ruby, and is Agatha Gillman's wife. He has a online show on a social media site about a bottle, and has a subplot with Sam Gillman, Gordon Lighthouse, Uncle Brill, and Davey of them trying to catch Ruby.
- Captain Gordon Lighthouse is a rusty old sailor guy, saw a Kraken, rides a bus, and tries to catch Ruby while also having a subplot with Sam Gillman, Davey, Uncle Brill, and Agatha Gillman of catching Ruby.
- Similar to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the end credits are great and creative as they use 2D animation.
- Great voice acting, which helps that the movie has a lot of talented A-list celebrity actors, most notably Lana Condor, Jane Fonda, and Will Forte.
- There are a handful of funny moments that are great and fit the film very well, such as:
- Ruby's mother lies about the Gillman family being from Canada and their blue skin being a skin condition.
- Ruby and her brother Sam fighting at breakfast and Agatha Gillman stops them.
- Gordon Lighthouse staring at keeping an eye on Ruby and thinking she is a Kraken, him staring at Ruby's Canada flag on the back of her backpack, and her saying she's from Canada, with him leaving.
- Margot saying, "We eat a lot of cheese!".
- Ruby hugging someone else's backpack who is not Connor after fantasizing over him.
- Brill Gillman wanting to come out of Agatha's car to see and help Ruby, but she does not want him to and slams the car door on him and his face is smooshed.
- Sam says to Arthur if he can become a kraken, with Arthur saying that it only happens to the females and Sam is disappointed.
- Ruby is surprised that she is a princess after Grandmama tells her she is one.
- Ruby going into the school library, the librarian comes in, Ruby tries to hide, one of the books fails, the librarian sees her, Ruby Gillman tries to shush her, the librarian screams, and Ruby bursts out of the library and destroying it.
- Agatha Gillman hitting a pile of leaves and thinking there is a cone, but it is revealed to be her brother and Ruby's uncle, Brill.
- Arthur tells Ruby that her body goes through changes. Sound familiar?
- Brill getting covered by seagulls and Ruby taking them off him and him having a Corn dog on him.
- Gordon Lighthouse saying "Surprise! It's a bomb!" and throwing the bomb in the water.
- Sam, Arthur Gilman, and Gordon Lighthouse catching what they think is a kraken, but it turns out to be Ruby Gillman's pet, Toothy, and it is going on Gordon's face.
- Ruby trying to tell her mother about Chesla, but it is a girl who funnily looks like her.
- Brill trying to swim fast but he is swimming very slowly in the ocean.
- Chelsea being shrunken.
- Chelsea begging Gordon to let me out of the cage and saying that she is a nice girl and beautiful girl.
- The music by Stephanie Economou is pretty great, such as Mimi Webb's "This Moment".
- The battle scenes are interesting and awesome, such as:
- The final battle with Ruby in her giant Kraken form batting Chesla in her giant mermaid form.
- The world-building in this movie is great and has a bunch of places.
- There are some emotional scenes here and there, such as Agatha comforting Ruby about her being a "monster", with Ruby crying, Agatha talking, and her turning back to her normal form, and TBA.
- The ending is great, thanks to it having everything going back to normal.
Bad Qualities
- The running gag of Ruby fighting with her parents can be annoying and predictable.
- The trailers mostly spoiled everything, especially Chelsea Van Der Zee being a villain, ironically despite being set as a twist villain, not to mention this was one of the factors that resulted in the film's poor box office performance.
- Bad release timing: The film was released a couple of weeks after Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Elemental, causing the movie to fail miserably at the box office.
Reception
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken received mostly mixed reviews from critics and audiences. The film's release date was set to June 30, a time when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was ready to be released on that exact same date. Even though the film was barely advertised, at least in the US and Latin America. The film received a dismal $5.2 million on its opening weekend, the worst for any DreamWorks film.
Box office
The film revived $5.2 million, finishing in 6th and becoming the worst three-day opening weekend ever for a DreamWorks animated film, TheWrap, /Film and Variety cited the reasons being the movie's poor three-month marketing, misleading trailers/TV spots and competition between Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Elemental. Not to mention it ruined people’s chance to see it in theatres, because it was released on-demand and digitally for only 3 weeks after being released on theatres, similar to the infamous Garbage Patch Kids film.
Videos
Trailers
External Links
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken at the Internet Movie Database
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken on Rotten Tomatoes
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