SPELLBOUND (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Spellbound, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 22, 2024

It's likely that most kids think there's something odd about their parents, and in Spellbound, what makes the protagonist's parents different is unavoidable. They're monsters—and not in the metaphorical sense that a couple of oracles assume when they show up to help the girl. No, they're honest-to-goodness, oversized, and generally destructive monsters. They might also be that in a figurative sense from a certain perspective, but that's for later in the story.

Director Vicky Jenson's movie does get better in that later part of the tale, when the screenplay by Lauren Hynek, Elizabeth Martin, and Julia Miranda has something to say about the relationships between the parents and their daughter, as well as the two parents themselves. The material finally feels as if it has human investment with which to connect, because it's all a lot of blandly fantastical plotting, joking, and conflict until that point.

The opening song pretty much sets those low expectations, as Princess Ellian (voiced with a lot of charm by Rachel Zegler) quite plainly explains the back story of how her parents, the King and Queen of Lumbria, became monsters. "My Parents Are Monsters" is the title, which should give one an idea that this far from the catchiest tune composer Alan Menkin, along with lyricist Glenn Slater, has written over the course of his illustrious career.

The premise is amusing, at least. Ellian and a couple of court counsellors attempt to hide the monarchs' transformation from the denizens of the kingdom and the royal guard, with a minister named Bolinar (voice of John Lithgow) running out of excuses for the monarchs' absence and declaring that they're too busy with colonoscopies to make a public appearance.

Anyway, Ellian has to spend her 15th birthday, as she has over the course of a year since her parents became monsters, tending to the kingdom, her parents, and the deceit. At the end of her rope, she contacts a pair of oracles (voiced by Nathan Lane and Tituss Burgess), who are horrified and stumped by what has happened to the King and Queen.

They suggest Ellian takes them back to the Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness, where the transformation occurred, and seek out a fabled lake of light. Before they can start the trek, her monstrous parents escape the castle, and Ellian has to rescue them from soldiers who think they're just ordinary beasts attacking the kingdom. The trio, along with Ellian's purple gerbil-like pet, flee into the forest—but not before Bolinar swaps consciousnesses with the princess' pet, by way of a magical device the oracles accidentally left behind.

The rest of the plot is an adventure, with a string of obstacles and complications, through the woods. While the movie looks bright and colorful, these little scenarios don't exactly give us a sense of the characters or a story, except that it must keep moving and coming up with new sights to see and setpieces to stage. One in a cave, in which the echoes of speech take on a physical form that matches the tone of someone's voice, hints at something about the relationships within this family, since the parental monsters are quick to anger and accidentally hurt those around them.

Hints, though, are mostly what we get for a long while. The family rescues a flying leopard cub that becomes trapped on a rock on a flowing lake of quicksand. The group meets more of the rodent creatures, and Bolinar realizes he fits in among them more than he would have guessed. The soldiers keep pursuing, and the party keeps evading them.

Eventually and thankfully, the monsters start talking, and we realize how much the story's central gimmick has kept any sense of these characters at bay. Solon, the King, is voiced by Javier Bardem, and Nicole Kidman voices Queen Ellsmere. They're thrilled to find their voices and realize who they are in relation to Ellian, but soon enough, the two are bickering over what to do next, who's the better protector, and which of them the daughter loves more.

As a vortex of dark lines (A striking element amidst the movie's solid computer animation) keeps appearing whenever the arguing and other dark thoughts escalate, where all of this goes here is surprisingly mature. That's especially so, considering how broadly playful and jokey so much of the material is. It's a bit wise, too, with Ellian gradually realizing that the happy memories she's trying to bring to life again might not have been so happy in the first place.

With the emergence of the monsters as characters instead of a running gag, Spellbound does find its own voice and sense of purpose, too, serving as a fable about the strains of family and how a tenuous marriage can affect a child caught in the middle of it. There's a pretty good story here, in other words, once the filmmakers decide it's finally time to tell it.

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