Damsel could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been great. It had a powerhouse studio backing it. The cast was absolutely stacked due to Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett, and Robin Wright. It became very clear from the trailer that the special effects looked on point and that the studio was clearly leaning into the popularity of YA books that follow this style of storytelling. And yet, Damsel was…just…ok. It didn’t blow me away. It just was.
In many ways, being “just ok” as a movie is devastating for said movie. After all, Netflix doesn’t want this to be passable. They want this to wow. But it didn’t. On the flip side of things that doesn’t make it bad either. I could put Damsel on in the background like nothing, look away, and still know what’s going on. The predictability of it all is a comfort sometimes. And the star power full of such strong actresses always draws the eye and pulls at the heartstrings like Brown and Bassett did.
Think of it like this. Remember Eowyn from Lord of the Rings when she took off her helmet and said, “I am no man.”??? That was a moment. You felt it in your bones and you knew you were witnessing something powerful. And this is coming from someone who didn’t even like Eowyn and loves Brown from Stranger Things. But Brown wasn’t bringing it in Damsel. I felt like she was playing at being a badass who was no damsel, instead of being the badass.
It got to the point where I was just there for the vibes and the hope that Elodie and the dragon would team up and destroy the city as a whole. I was also hoping that maybe Elodie would use those glowing worms to bring the dragons children back to life. But most of all, I was hoping that the dragon was actually a dude and that they would fall in love before going back and destroying everything together. Basically, I was hoping the monsterf*ckers of the world would rise and it would be madness. Because this movie needed something crazy to make it stand out and have people talk about it.
But Damsel just was. Not heartbreaking. Not heart pounding. I wasn’t even as angry as I thought I would be at the Queen or the cowardly Prince. I wanted fire, rage, and the burning fire of a woman’s rage at being bamboozled, thrown down a pit, and made to face a fearsome dragon. Instead, I got a dragon who was wronged, a movie that should’ve been a show, and a heroine that was more a spark that a raging inferno.
Damsel is now available on Netflix.
