Damsel (2024)

March 10, 2024 5:27 AM

A dutiful damsel agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family has recruited her as a sacrifice to repay an ancient debt.

Netflix Really a lot of fun. Always good to have a self-rescuing princess.

posted by hydropsyche (14 comments total)

This was fun. Wish I hadn't seen the trailer beforehand, since it spelled out the whole plot. Millie Bobby Brown had a sort of Jennifer Lawrence vibe and it suits her. The dragon was a compelling villain, if she can be called that. They took some inspiration from the Hobbit's Smaug scenes. Would go well in a marathon with Maleficient and Frozen in the "The Fairy Tale is a Lie" genre.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:11 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]

I knew nothing about it except the picture on Netflix and that several of my friends had liked it, so I got to be surprised by the plot point summarized by IMDB, which was really fun.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:29 PM on March 10

I like how the twist of the dragoness played out. Also, for letting dad die.

The multiculturalism (of the past princesses) was refreshing, and makes sense in-world. Like, one would have to space out the princess recruiting scam or people might wise up to it.

Or... like as was revealed of the dad - entirely complicit.
posted by porpoise at 4:35 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]

I described this to a friend as “Reign of Fire good”, which in our love language is the highest praise one can give a dragon movie.

great world building, great creature design, and then they go and give the voice work to Shohreh Aghdashloo, who just fuckin’ cranks the menace dial up to 12.
posted by FallibleHuman at 4:37 PM on March 10 [9 favorites]

Shohreh Aghdashloo

Okay now I'm interested.
posted by whuppy at 8:10 AM on March 11 [10 favorites]

Shohreh Aghdashloo

The PERFECT casting for a powerful, menacing dragon. Barely had to add any special sound effects. This movie punches several notches above its weight. Fun film!
posted by ssmith at 9:21 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]

The princess did not skip arm day. Pegboarding up the slope with the knife and again up the crystals and then again on the slope after the jump. She would dominate any of the Ninja Warrior type shows.

I’m glad the super healing goo worked so well and so quickly (and that the uncharismatic megafauna didn’t die). Perhaps she could figure how to raise the leeches and turn her kingdom from a poor treeless baren steppe into a pharmalogical empire.
posted by autopilot at 4:06 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]

I really liked this. As someone else said... totally punched above its weight.

And Queen of Earth, Avasarala, as the dragon voice? Swooooooon. I hope there are some outtakes somewhere with the dragon swearing like a dock worker.
posted by kokaku at 2:55 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]

Agree. Better than it had any right to be.
posted by idb at 6:40 PM on March 16

I laughed at the Johnny Cash cover during the credits.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:37 PM on March 23

Normally I like things better than most of Metafilter but here the reverse is true. I hated this so much that I cleaned the kitchen during the last third, because cleaning the kitchen was more enjoyable. This was 45 minutes of plot and action dragged out into a 90 minute movie, and I wish some of the money they'd spent on casting actors for things way below their pay grade had been spent on a rewrite or a better director. I couldn't help but compare it to Princess, which shares some of the same tropes but contains much more action-packed fun.
posted by rednikki at 9:48 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]

casting actors for things way below their pay grade

God, I wish they had given Angela Bassett anything worthwhile to do in this movie.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:05 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]

The plot was basically by-the-numbers in a way where they telegraph VERY HEAVILY that the new family is evil and is going to feed her to the dragon, but I didn't care that it was no surprise because it was pretty fun to see it play out. I was surprised by how much inspiration it seemed to take from horror movies and torture-porn horror (subverted, thankfully, by the healing slugs). It was obvious her victories were going to keep turning to defeat ("it's too early in the movie for her to escape..." "Oh, of course that's not an exit" "Well she has to go back for her sister") but it was nice to see her team up with the dragon at the end rather than slaying her. It was pretty much exactly what I expected, but I think fantasy/fairy tale movies can go more wrong if you do too LITTLE of what's expected rather than too much. Recycling old tropes is the whole appeal of the genre.
posted by rikschell at 2:44 PM on May 21 [2 favorites]

To my surprise, this just filled me with rage and sadness. I hated seeing people treated as disposable - and I don’t know why because I’ve enjoyed plenty of movies where people die for dumb reasons.

Maybe on another day I’d have a fuller appreciation for the twist at the end.
posted by bunderful at 2:56 PM on July 10