DAMSEL -- Millie Bobby Brown’s CGI-Fuelled Medieval Survival Thriller is a Mess

Review by Cole Groth

Millie Bobby Brown has been sure to take exciting roles throughout her career. From Stranger Things to Godzilla and Enola Holmes, her roles have been defined through exciting settings, none from the modern world. This trend continues in Damsel, where she moves further back than ever before to medieval times. Here, she portrays a princess forced to survive a dragon after an organized marriage goes awry. Unlike her previous films, this is all spectacle and lacks any substance as a story.

Damsel follows Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown), a princess swept away to a faraway land to be married off to a handsome prince (Nick Robinson). After a few montages of pre-marital bliss, things turn sour after the prince chucks Elodie into a chasm to become Dragon bait. Over the better portion of the following 80 minutes, Elodie proves to be a force to be reckoned with as she fights for survival.
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Let’s talk about what I liked first! There wasn’t much. Bobby Brown is very good at this, playing the role of a princess-turned-warrior very well. The cast around her isn’t very interesting, which helps her stand out a little more. Since this is only 108 minutes long, it’s nice that it doesn’t drag on for long. It’s also an interesting premise that’s quickly ruined after realizing how dreadful the story is.

Once Princess Elodie is chucked into the cave, most of the film takes place in the cave with the dragon in it. The problem with this is that it has almost no story at the end of the day. Elodie doesn’t grow much as a character, and the only conflict is survival. It’s perfectly built for Netflix because it’s absolute slop. There’s nothing stylistically interesting, and the story is barebones. The whole survival stuff feels like it should be a ten-minute segment in a grand fantasy adventure film, but since it’s the only real set piece, what’s the point?

If you thought this would be a visual treat, at the very least, think again. Truthfully, this is one of the ugliest fantasy movies produced in years. It’s funny that this releases one week after Dune: Part Two because the two movies are night and day from a visual perspective. One of them sports the best special effects of the year, ushered in through a clear creative vision and a talented crew. Here, every shot is shot against some painfully jarring blue screen filled with CGI. It’s a shame that it looks this bad, and I can’t imagine that building out a nicer cave set (since it’s one of the only sets in the film) could’ve cost that much more than the terrible CGI. Netflix is cutting corners here, and it shows.

Damsel is a film in dire need of a charming prince in the form of a decent director, studio, and screenplay. There’s no charm to watching a viciously ugly, nonsensical movie with no apparent purpose. It feels like this was just meant to be a vessel for Bobby Brown’s performance, but a movie like this cannot succeed on the merits of its star. This is an ugly mess of confusing CGI and a lousy plot. It’s doomed to be forgotten by Netflix after its first week at the top.

Damsel releases on Netflix on March 8.

Rating: 1.5/5