My Little Pony: The Movie Review

So this weekend, the theatrical film of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic made its debut in US cinemas. While it is not surprising that MLP gets a theatrical film, what I do wonder is the target audience - is the MLP movie meant for the brony community, who've watched the series since Season 1, or can those who've never seen My Litte Pony: Friendship is Magic be able to dive in and enjoy?

I wasn't sure if MLP was mainstream popular enough that they are just as recognizable as say, the Avengers or the Justice League. And of course, whether or not you need to be familiar with the series to understand the movie's plot. Given that I have stopped watching the series after Season 3, or whichever episode got Twilight Sparkle to become a princess, the movie serves as a good experiment if I would enjoy it even though I haven't watched MLP for so long, or do I really need to watch the other seasons to catch up.

It begins with Twilight making preparations for the Friendship Festival. Now I don't know if this is a yearly thing or once in a century or whatever. But regardless, every pony from all over the world are coming for the celebration. Twilight, ever the bookworm, is in charge of organizing the festival the way you'd typically expect out of her.

The preparations were halted by the arrival of of the forces of Stormking, who seeks the magic of the four princesses for world domination. With his lackey Tempest running things, three of the four princesses were captured. As the Mane 6 and Spike are the only ones that escaped Stormking's army, they head off on a journey to find the Queen of The Hippogriffs to ask for her assistance in fighting against the Stormking, and save Equestria and the other princesses.

I will admit, the very first few seconds of the film, I started to groan. It started off with a very beautiful, and I do mean beautiful, 2.5D animation sequence. What I mean is that the characters are drawn in 2D, but the way they move around and their animation sequences, are done as though it's in 3D.

But that got drowned out when the film did their own Pony-version of the pop song "We've Got The Beat" by The Go-Go's. Never have I recalled in watching the first 3 Seasons of MLP, or from all the Equestria Girls movies, did the musical numbers do an actual cover of a pop song. But the moment I heard the cover of "We've Got The Beat" playing, the first thing that popped onto my head were the Alvin and The Chipmunks films and to me, this is the direction the movie is going. And I cannot help but cringe at the whole music number. Thankfully, it was short, but it was still cringy.

With respect to Daniel Ingram, who did the song and score since the first season of MLP, the original songs are ok to listen to, but nothing memorable. Even the songs from the Disney movie "Frozen", as much as everyone has gotten sick and tired of it, still sticks to you like glue. I can still remember the songs from the earlier seasons of My Little Pony, and by extension Equestria Girls. But not so with this movie's soundtrack.

As for the overall plot, if I'm to put it bluntly, it's a rehash of the first two episodes of the MLP series, thematically speaking. What I mean is that the theme of friendship is placed centerstage again for the nth time for the next set of characters the Mane 6 encounters in the film, and the movie pretends that the Mane 6 still haven't gotten around the concept of friendship even though they've been doing it for 7 bloody years!

I get it, though. It's in order to help draw in viewers who never saw the TV series. But I still find it disappointing Meghan McCarthy and Joe Ballarini, who wrote the script, couldn't think of something a little more original. Much of the plot can be compared to the earlier Disney Princess films, as well as those from Don Bluth like All Dogs Go To Heaven. The introduction of Stormking as the antagonist does bring a bit of seriousness, but that goes away because his persona makes him somewhat of a rip-off of James Woods's version of Hades in Disney's Hercules film.

It doesn't help either that after the first few minutes, you can pretty much see how the plot goes. You also find a number the tropes that, while common and not surprising, the overall execution turns out bland. The same goes to its humor. I recall how I enjoyed the comedy featured in the earlier seasons, but I only laughed at one joke in the entire film.

That's nothing compared to the one part of the movie that really grinds my gears - the Mane 6's journey to seek help in order to defeat the Stormking, is nothing more than a MacGuffin.

I really hate to compare, but the Equestria Girls movies have far better storytelling than the MLP film, and it's from the same team. On the plus side, we are introduced to several new characters that aren't ponies. That's about it, though. As for the celebrity voices, you'd hardly even notice and, like virtually every other animated film these days, these celebrities only voice the characters for marketing purposes, rather than their actual talent for voice acting. The MLP movie isn't terrible by any means, but if you're expecting something totally epic, don't.

So to answer the question at the beginning of this review - is My Little Pony: The Movie worth seeing for someone who's not into MLP or for fans of the franchise? If you are a die-hard fan of the Mane 6, you will enjoy this film no matter what. Kids no doubt will enjoy this film too. For an ex-brony like myself, it's not a terrible film, but not something I would 'squee' at, either. As for those who've never seen it before, I'd say it's better you get the film as a video rental rather than watch it in a movie theater, then decide for yourself if you are into the franchise or not. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give My Little Pony: The Movie, a 2 out of 5.