Worse movie of the year for us so far, and we recently watched ROBOT MONSTER.
Gack.
Years ago, I read Andrew's review for
RAINBOW BRITE AND THE STAR STEALER and I knew that watching stuff with/for my children was going to put me on the path of recognizing that degree of pain.
Sooner or later, I'd get my RAINBOW BRITE moment. And I was not going to be happy about it.
This is a rant, not a review.
I got FELICITY: AN AMERICAN GIRL ADVENTURE for a family movie not having the first clue about the tie-in for the American Girls dolls. My daughter rides horses competitively and so we tend to watch a lot of horse movies, and the Netflix synopsis points about "rescue from an abusive owner" and "Colonial Williamsburg" seemed inviting for low-key family fare. A couple of days ago we rocked out with INDEPENDENCE DAY (on Independence Day, of course), preceded a mere few days by the aforementioned ROBOT MONSTER and a documentary about wolves, so mellow, feel-good entertainment was due in the rotation.
I repeat.....gack.
I summarize FELICITY:
Bullet Point One: This is presumably a movie for young girls to have a strong role model. The main character, the role model, performs the following in this movie:
Theft of capital property, lies, terrorism, prayer ONLY when it is self serving, willful disobedience of her parents, harboring/aiding a fugitive, somehow forces a jail guard to let her into a cell to bring a prisoner (that hates her) a blanket and some apples...
Not only does she 'get away' with these things, some serious crimes both today and in Colonial Williamsburg, but she is APPLAUDED for them. She's the movie's hero, and no pretense of anti-hero is bothered with. Steal a horse? Get to keep it, because neither her own parents NOR the guy that owned it cares (after he repeatedly threatened her with physical violence for coming near his horse, so crap, the movie even fails in INTERNAL consistency...oh wait, she did bring HIM that blanket in jail that one time.....)
Bullet Point 2: Historical Inaccuracy
There were four history consultants listed in the credits. This movie was just a mess of garbage. They did not even phone in the historical facts of a movie of this type.
But one example: In the minds of this movies writers, the entire revolutionary war was fought over TEA. The "King" taxed tea and well, that's just too much. I get that it was not a history lesson, but could they not have at least bothered to try to make it look a little more complicated than that?
I mean, they were throwing people (not the hated horse owner, we never found out what he was in jail for...I could only conclude it was for having his horse stolen) jail for being Loyalists (in Williamsburg!) all the while Loyalists were complaining about Felicity's Dad being a criminal because he decided to NOT SELL TEA in his shop!
Yes, boys and girls, it was apparently a LAW in Williamsburg that shop owners HAD to tell tea, no matter what the taxes were, otherwise Loyalists could COMPLAIN and go to jail for being Loyalists.
Huh? Geez, this movie was stupid.
And don't get me started on the Civil War style tents/camp layout in the "militia encampment" scene. The obviously-sections-of-prefab-fencing-from-Lowes around the camp was pretty cool, though.
Bullet Point 3: Girls HAVE to drink tea with their friends whether they want it or not. You are not drinking tea or eating "biscuits" because you are hungry, you are doing it to show respect for your hostess.
In other words, deportment classes in Williiamsburg SUCKED, but being a rebellious little hellion who steals horses and harbors fugitives makes you the class clown that the teacher loves to teach.
The message to young girls watching this tripe is "fit in...ALWAYS fit in. And when you don't, no matter what you do, you will ALWAYS be the hero, the most liked person in the room. Even at 10 years old."
I like movies with strong female characters. Movies like ALIEN come to mind...a character that would be strong male or female totally ROCKS.
"All you need is love," or "we'll still be friends, even if you are a Loyalist and I am a Patriot" from a horse thief will not help my daughter make her way in the big, mean, ugly world.
Bullet Point 4:
The only character that had ANY depth or development was the mean old horse abuser who was thrown in jail for having his horse stolen (I'm guessing). He's a cranky old man, and we know why...he was a cool guy around town til his wife died.
With HIM I can sympathize. I was rooting for him throughout the movie, and he's the ONLY character that changed ANYTHING about himself or had any kind of journey.
So, the movie was, in thematic terms, really about him. He started out a bitter alcoholic angry at the world because his beloved left him alone, fell from being once a 'great horseman' to a lowly horse abuser, hit rock bottom in jail (for some reason) and stepped up to the plate to SAVE THE LIFE of the horse that was STOLEN FROM HIM and redeem himself for earlier abuse
(and even made a joke about it...."hold her, she probably remembers everything I did to her.")
and ultimately came to be accepted into the "in" social circle again at the end.
Why the HELL was this movie not called the "Jiggy Nye Story" and have him as the main focus throughout anyway?
In contrast, Felicity did not change one bit throughout the movie. She NEVER apologized for stealing his horse, even when asking for his help to save her life! She lied, cheated and acted selfishly at the beginning of the movie, and was just the same piece of crap brat kid at the end.
I HATED her character, and the writers for giving her so much room to "grow" and doing nothing with it.
Bullet Point 5, and the last one (I'm getting tired): Fake Accents and phony 18th century English.
Even the acting was phoned in, except by Géza Kovács' Nye.
Ugh.
Seriously, this piece of garbage has a 6.4 rating on IMDB (that bastion of accurate ratings), and this, if nothing else, makes me weep for the future of our nation.
I think I'm going to try to rent RAINBOW BRITE: STAR STEALER; my brain is already numb. Now's the time to watch it if I ever am going to.
1 out of 5, and the 1 is only for Jiggy Nye's character arc and the acting of this character.
