It’s a sad fact that women have been fighting off monsters of various shapes and sizes since humans have been walking upright, but when looking looking at forms of victimization in cinematic terms, things are noticably more colourful. Be it Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley fending off a drooling xenomorph, Linda Hamilton’s Sara Connor giving a Terminator a taste of its own medicine in a pneumatic press, or any number of plucky heroines doing away with a pesky slasher, movies have given us a whole clutch of would-be damsels dealing out a fair amount of distress of their own.
Latest to wave the flag of monster-vanquishing girl power is Damsel, Netflix’s latest lavish blockbuster that doesn’t require you to venture into your local cinema, but does the sight of Millie Bobby Brown squaring up to a flame belching dragon give the fantasy genre a boot up the gender oriented behind?
Elodie is the daughter of Lord Bayford who, in turn rules over a struggling kingdom blighted by poverty. While she and her younger sister, Florina, strive to pitch in and aid their needy subjects, salvation seems to be on the horizon in the shape of the prosperous kingdom of Aurea as Queen Isabelle offers a sizable dowry if Elodie consents to marry the dishy Prince Henry. While she is initially doubtful, her pushy stepmother convinces her that not only will it help their people, nabbing an honest to god prince fires up that part of all young women that sees netting a dashing royal as a dream come true.
At first, everything is as picturesque and glossy as a live-action Disney reboot, but soon the ceremony takes a darker turn as one of Aurea’s traditions suddenly becomes incredibly sinister and results in Elodie being bodily hurled into a chasm without any explanation whatsoever.
Surviving the fall, Elodie has no time to mourn the loss of her wedding night as she finds that she shares the gloomy cave with a snarling, predatory dragon who fancies a spot of cat and mouse before finishing off its prey with a searing blast of dragon fire and now all too aware that she has shifted from bride to sacrifice, the would-be princess desperately tries to stay alive.
Initially finding the tact of cowering and whimpering ineffectual against a fire spewing murder reptile, the resourceful Elodie starts exploring her surroundings in order to try and find an advantage and after discovering a bunch of clues from previous sacrifices, and a handy clutch of healing glow worms, she slowly starts to find ways to try and escape. However, the longer she spends avoiding the dragon’s attempts on her life, the more she finds out what the creature’s motives actually are and exactly how far Aurea’s lies have spread.
To be honest, the concept of having a simpering princess suddenly turn around and go all girl boss on a marauding dragon, rather than waiting for a man to save her, is one I’m surprised hasn’t come around sooner. While some predictably roll their eyes at the thought of some “Mary Sue” somehow manage to wrestle a mythical killing machine into submission, the subversion of a shrieking sacrifice seemly weirdly long overdue and the makers of Damsel strive to copy the very best classic survival action pictures in order to make the story work. At numerous times, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) evokes Die Hard in order to make its battered heroine the Disney princess version of John McClane, but with all the crawling through dank, dark, confined spaces, Damsel often resembles the original Alien too. To its credit, the movie doesn’t give its beleaguered heroine an easy ride of it, having her beaten, battered, burned and bruised by her winged foe and in these moments, Millie Bobby Brown acquits herself admirably. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s got previous form squaring up to giant lizards thanks to her tenure in the American Godzilla sequels or maybe four seasons of Stranger Things has given her the ability to channel toughness through a wide-eyed innocence, but when called to pull of the action stuff, Brown puts in a believable performance.
Similarly, her scaly foe is also well conceived, and while it’s smaller and more lithe than some of its cinematic peers, it’s voiced with gravelly malice by Shohreh Aghdashloo and proves to be a very effective antagonist who is as chatty as Smaug from the Hobbit and as volatile as Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer. In fact, the set pieces actually manage to hold up rather well compared to those seen in those two aforementioned, Dragony high points.
However, whenever the movie decides to move out of the cave, Damsel seems to need a spot of help as its world building plays things a little too safe despite the action beats trying so hard to subvert expectations. When called to be a more traditional princess, Brown’s Elodie is painfully boring and the fantasy realm we find ourselves in is weirdly bland when not illuminated by the funky bluish hue of glow worms or the brutal oranges of dragon fire. Elsewhere, the supporting cast seem to be firing at half-strength with Ray Winstone and Angela Bassett happy to let Brown take centre stage without breaking much of a sweat. Also, while Robin Wright plays the scheming Queen with a nicely sardonic air (a nice in-joke considering how sweet she is in The Princess Bride) again, she’s not given the space to properly chew some scenery and go full bad guy. In fact, most distracting is the fact that Brown, Wright and Bassett seem all locked in mortal combat as to who among them can deliver the most cut-glass, english accent possible, and while Brown wins hands down, all three manage to make Emma Watson sound like Kathy Burke and it gets quite annoying after a while.
Another thing that tends to thwart Damsel from fully achieving its admirable goal is that Netflix’s trailers eagerly gave a lot of the game away, leaving precious little surprises for an audience expecting to be kept off balance for a fantasy film willing to break a couple of rules. As a result, there’s a feeling that a lot of Damsel’s finer points have already been done far better in the vastly superior Predator sequel, Prey that also saw a heroine trapped in less balanced times go toe to claw with an inhuman hunter.
As Netflix blockbusters go, Damsel is, for the most part, a gripping survival flick; but when it has to fall back on the more traditional, fantasy moments, this dragon struggles to stay aloft and is in dire need of rescue.
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