8 Reasons Reviews For Millie Bobby Brown’s New Netflix Movie Are So Low

Warning: This list contains some images that constitute spoilers for Netflix’s Damsel.

If one thing is certain, it is that Netflix’s new movie Damsel starring Millie Bobby Brown is not getting the reviews it hoped for, which can be considered mixed at best. Damsel follows Elodie (Brown), a young woman in a “faraway land” who is arranged to marry the handsome Prince Henry (Nick Robinson), only for his family to sacrifice her to a vicious dragon. Brown’s fairytale-trope-subversion action-adventure is receiving low reviews for a variety of reasons concerning the story itself, but also possibly the circumstances under which it was released.

Critics give this latest Netflix release credit for its beautiful setting, noteworthy cast, and chilling moments involving its domineering dragon. However, more than one Damsel review agrees that the writing is weak, only redeemed by a few scattered moments with Brown and some of the other cast. Damsel is hindered by its 21st-century clichés, yet some who are still able to appreciate it and would like to see the setting expanded in Damsel 2.

8
Damsel Spends Too Much Time In The Dragon’s Cave

Damsel has an inherent structure problem.

Damsel has an inherent story problem: After an epilogue of sorts, the larger part of the movie is just Elodie fighting for her life in the dragon’s den. Several reviewers make the “Die Hard with a dragon/in a cave” analogy, which was probably the intended effect of the movie (for example, rogerebert.com and superherohype.com). However, some critics believe that it is too long and too grim.

Peter Travers argues (via ABC) that “Damsel really loses its juice […] in spending more than a hour of screen time watching Elodie try to outwit the dragon in caves so dim and desolate you can barely see anything.” Yet since Elodie escaping being sacrificed is the main point of the movie, there is not a clear way for them to have avoided this problem other than restructuring the entire story. Whatever the intention was for this survivalist sequence, fatigue starts to creep in with Elodie spending so much time alone in the dark.

7
Damsel Underuses Its Biggest Stars

Angela Bassett’s Damsel character especially needed more development.

The members of Damsel’s star-studded cast play a variety of neoteric fairytale characters. There is a general appreciation for Robin Wright’s evil queen character reversing her role in The Princess Bride, as well as for her performance as Queen Isabelle. Shohreh Aghdashloo is even winning praise for voicing the unnamed but vengeful dragon “with exquisitely smokey menace” (rogerebert.com).

However, even if one decides that Wright’s role was worth the time, the consensus is that Damsel wastes the talents of Angela Bassett. Bassett plays Elodie’s kind stepmother, who insists something is wrong with Elodie’s arranged marriage and is supposed to have a heartfelt storyline of becoming closer with her stepdaughter. In theory, this is another subversion of a classic fairytale trope. Yet the stepmother only has small moments hinting at a more developed character, robbing her of any impact.

6
Damsel Was Released On Netflix

Some of Damsel’s action might have been more impactful in theaters.

Despite giving a fairly positive review, Roger Ebert says (rogerebert.com): “It’s too bad [Damsel] is not on a big screen, because the settings are filled with enticing details that bolster some of the weakness of the screenplay.” Perhaps this would have solved the problem of Elodie’s extended cat-and-mouse game with the dragon, which may have been more intense in a movie theater, and at least easier to see on a bigger screen. In another day and age, Damsel might have seen success as a stunning and straightforward blockbuster.

5
Damsel Doesn’t Have A Clear Target Demographic

Damsel is too violent for kids but too cloying for adults.

David Opie calls Damsel (via Empire), “Too childish and shallow for adults, yet too brutal and gory for kids,” which illustrates the movie’s biggest marketing problem. The plot is a basic warrior princess storyline that younger audiences know and love by now, ever since Frozen changed Disney’s landscape. However, Elodie finds herself in a very hopeless situation and gets some pretty nasty burns, which parents might think is too much for their kids. Yet the odds that parents are watching Damsel without their kids are also slim, stranding the movie in target audience limbo.

4
Damsel Is A Rushed Book-To-Movie Adaptation

Netflix jumped to make a movie version of the little-known Damsel novel.

Damsel is based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Skye, which was released barely a year ago. Maggie Lovitt argues (via Collider) that Netflix botched Damsel’s ending, and its major themes: “In [the novel], Elodie and the dragon are one and the same. They are both female creatures shaped into weapons by the cruelty of others, tricked by deceitful schemes, and blinded by their own misconceptions […].” Damsel was already in production by the time the novel was published, and Netflix’s executives likely didn’t take the time to fully appreciate what they were adapting.

3
Damsel’s Advertising Ruins Its Pacing & Twist

Audience expectations from trailers ruin Damsel.

Everyone who has seen even the most minimal amount of advertising for Damsel knows the movie’s big “twist,” and this knowledge messes up the movie’s pacing. Opie says: “When Elodie is — shock! — thrown into a dragon-filled cave, it almost comes as a relief.” The movie drags on for the first half an hour while everyone waits for the real story to start, and when it does, what is a moment of pure horror for Elodie fails to move the audience at all. Some of Damsel’s trailers even gave away the most dramatic moments of Elodie’s trial with the dragon.

2
Millie Bobby Brown’s Other Netflix Properties Are Better Than Damsel

Damsel can’t compare to Enola Holmes or Stranger Things.

Brown has been Netflix’s favorite young star since she first appeared in her breakout role of Eleven in Stranger Things. She was subsequently cast as the leading woman in Netflix’s movie adaptation of the Enola Holmes books, a franchise that works much better with its movies being released on a streaming service. Damsel had a lot to live up to; more than it could, with Brown being an icon of Netflix and her past properties with the streaming giant receiving great reviews.

1
Damsel’s Premise Has Been Done Many Times Before

Damsel does not do anything unique with its subversion of fairytale tropes.

Once upon a time, the subverted damsel in distress concept was fresh and inspiring. Now, the very premise of Damsel has become a cliché. Clarisse Loughrey vividly describes this effect (via The Independent), saying: “[…] we’re more than two decades into a post-Shrek world, and the concept of an anti-fairytale where the women can kick butt is now about as fresh as a Batman film where we see how his parents die.” As the introduction to a middling review, John Wilson also mocks (via Variety) Damsel’s “loud-and-clear message,” in a somewhat friendly way.

There have been many revisionist fairytale movies in the past 10 years, and a few from earlier, which subvert the traditional storyline by putting the princess in an action-oriented role. Damsel’s problem is that it stops there, and doesn’t offer any meaningful commentary about womanhood in a fairy tale. However, a heroic princess movie is still fun to watch, and some may still enjoy Netflix’s Damsel, despite its low reviews.