“There are many stories of chivalry, where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress…. This is not one of them,” Millie Bobby Brown intones in a solemn voiceover at the beginning of filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s distinctly unexceptional fantasy film, “Damsel.” And from this day forth, let’s make a cinematic decree that no film should ever be allowed to begin with such a banal “this is not one of these stories” proclamation, and the trope should be henceforth forever banished from the kingdom of movie narratives—especially when said film is so disposable with nothing to say about its already paper-thin ideas.
Based on the hackneyed idea of subverting the common “once upon a time” fairytale cliché of the title, the film is about as clever and deep as a shabby Eli Cash-type filled with unearned confidence arguing flimsily, “Well, everyone knows that damsels are in distress. What this movie presupposes is… maybe they’re not?” And sadly, that’s about all that complexity that’s ever offered.
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And frankly, no one is generally expecting anything deep or especially clever from a fantasy movie about a princess who fights off dragons, but even the slightest modicum of imagination would have gone a long way (the faintest traces of the capacity to create even the most basic sense of suspense or stakes might’ve been nice too).
Mundanely written by Dan Mazeau (“Wrath of the Titans”), Millie Bobby Brown stars as Elodie, a strong, young noblewoman from a faraway land that is mostly now barren with a starving populace going hungry. Barely trying to disguise the act one “twist” of the film (or just really, really bad at it, telegraphing it at every turn), her father, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), strikes a bargain with the nearby thriving kingdom of Aurea that has undertones of treachery written all over it. Elodie will marry Aurea’s prince, Henry (Nick Robinson), in exchange for riches that will ensure their people’s prosperity for centuries. But no sooner than the snide Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright, playing a one-note of witchy, essentially) welcomes her into the family, the true gambit is revealed. Elodie is essentially intended to be next in a long line of princess sacrifices made by the people of Aurea to pay an ancient debt to a local dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo) that has plagued their realm for centuries.
Tossed into a pit as an offering to appease the dragon, she’ll soon be discovered, eaten, or melted by fire-breathing dragon’s breath. Instead, she survives and eventually thrives, using her dogged determination, will, wits, and briefly demonstrated bits of independent spirit (and love of mazes, groan) to outsmart the dragon. So, for about 60 of 90 minutes, once the trite act one pleasantry is done with, Bobby Brown is in a dark labyrinth of caves running for her life, using her skills to evade lava-fire, surprise jump scare attacks, dragon claws, menacing-voiced dragon taunts, and the likes.
Never once are we in doubt that she will not survive, and never once does the film provide any suspense, scares, or sense of required cinematic thrills. This is a boring, dull film, seemingly made by a boring, dull filmmaker seemingly clueless about how insipid the screenplay is. Any other studio with a real sense of consequence would order reshoots (or maybe, in the case of Warner Bros., shelve the film for a tax write-off). For Netflix, it’s apparently its apparently decent enough as another piece of semi-sticky content to pass the time for its first week of release.
Angela Bassett co-stars, too, as Lady Bayford, Elodie’s concerned stepmother. But her role, as with Winstone and Wright’s, is so poorly drawn and thankless that a hefty Netflix check seems like the only probable reason why actors of their caliber would agree to such empty, subpar material. The entire “Damsel” raison d’etre is asserting this damsel doesn’t need a prince; she can self-rescue on her own. And yes, it’s that basic. There’s no calvary coming because she herself is the savior.
If that doesn’t sound like much of a movie, it’s not (and how that’s supposed to fly in 2024 seems baffling). And talents like cinematographer Larry Fong (“Kong: Skull Island”) and Hans Zimmer, who produced composer Dan Fleming’s score, do little to convince you otherwise.  Even the editing is sometimes conspicuously clumsy. One scene of fitting a dress onto Millie Bobby Brown’s Elodie character, readying for her royal wedding, is filled with so many unnecessary gratuitous cuts that it begins to resemble that over-edited scene in “Bohemian Rhapsody” that was ridiculed over social media for the same kind of overwroughtness.
Netflix already has an unfortunate reputation for sinking millions into disposable films with enough A-list talent to draw enough viewers into their algorithm to justify its existence. And “Damsel” does nothing to dispel this notion— one that is quickly becoming legendary. There’s no sense of soul or wit to the film, no sense of inventiveness or playfulness. Even as a rudimentary survival-against-the-odds movie with a fairy tale twist, “Damsel” fails to impress with the fundamental requirements of cinematic risk and peril. Dramatically, the film is maybe one rung above Medieval Times LARPING with an actual big budget. The heroine of the film may not be in distress, but oh boy, is this movie in desperate need of saving. [D+]