Have we all just missed the lighter side of krakens? After all, they’re just people. Like you and me, right? Well, actually they’re giant mythological sea-based homicidal terrors. But when you think about it, aren’t they giant mythological sea-based homicidal terrors just like you and me?
Ruby Gillman (voice of Lana Condor) is blue … with seaweed hair, earflaps, and tentacle-like appendages. Luckily, she’s animated and a teenager, so her peers don’t care. And neither does Ruby. Like most any teen, Ruby is hung up on prom. Does she have a chance with the frizzy-head kid she tutors? And will it matter when he finds out she’s a kraken? Will it matter when SHE finds out she’s a kraken?
That’s right. Ruby doesn’t know. Sure, her 23-and-me DNA test came back “100% Mariana Trench,” but I bet that happens to a lot of kids, right? Real estate agent mom hid the child from her own liquid asset: when she is submersed in ocean water, Ruby balloons to building-like size and resembles a giant squid, albeit a cartoonish animated one. Don’t get her wet. But at least you can feed her after midnight. Ruby is on a strict “never go in the ocean” routine, which is tough living in Oceanside. (Why didn’t they move to Nebraska?) And her high school -like most high schools- literally borders the water.
Stop me when this makes sense.
Ruby is an excellent student [read: NERD!], and has a penchant for marine biology. You don’t say? Tell me, when she brings home a copy of “Marine Biologist Quarterly” is it for science or porn? See, I’m not so sure it’s the former.
This film is a tiresome retread of Turning Red, right down to the fact that only the females in
the family turn into giant krakens – and are the male krakens in the family related? Does their family tree not branch? Were the picture better, somebody ought to explore that. But, basically, the kraken thing is yet another metaphor for female puberty. In case that wasn’t clear, ma and Grandmamah are voiced by Toni Collette and Jane Fonda – and if you can find better representatives of female empowerment in filmdom be my guest.
Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken has some positive moments, like when the film briefly becomes It’s a Wonderful Life for krakens. And when the family hides their weirdness by claiming to be “from Canada.” However, there’s far too little of this, no insights whatsoever into genuine teenage behavior (or kraken behavior for that matter), and the plot is telegraphed so far in advance that you’d need to be a complete movie novice not to see it coming. The most fun part is discovering that the girl is her own monster; did anyone consider calling her alter ego “Ruby Ruby Roo?” No? Ruh roh.
There once lived a teenage kraken
Whose high school reputation was lackin’
Still she unleashed a bomb
When she got set for prom
By growing 80 feet tall and attackin’
Rated PG, 91 Minutes
Director: Kirk DeMicco, Faryn Pearl
Writer: Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown, Elliott DiGuiseppi
Genre: Modern mythology?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Misunderstood teenage krakens
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The makers of Turning Red
