I’ve seen 4 Netflix original movies this year, two of them were terrible while the other 2 were great. And guess what? Damsel is part of the good ones, it actually is an amazing one! Spaceman and Lift were both terrible movies (in my opinion) that were not able to amuse me in any way possible. Damsel is different, a movie that I had 0 expectation for it and ended up getting an epic, unexpectedly dark, and enjoyable adventure.
The movie follows a young woman (Millie Bobby Brown) who thinks she is being married to a perfect prince until she is thrown into a pit where she discovers she’s not going to be a princess after all, but a sacrifice to appease a bloodthirsty dragon. Trying to survive long enough until someone can save her — she soon realizes that no one is coming and this “damsel” must save herself.
In the beginning, I was like: “Oh this is yet another cliche movie.” And I felt like I already knew what was about to happen but after a couple minutes into the movie you realize that this is going a total different way. I loved how the movie is not afraid of being dark and sometimes scary, I was expecting a cliche story but, even though it DOES have a simple plot, it managed to be extremely well executed. Millie Bobby Brown delivers an amazing performance as the princess, showing full girl power in the best way possible. Watching Millie fighting a dragon for over an hour was definitely something I never knew I needed.
Hans Zimmer is back to score another project and guess what? He does yet another incredible job with a killing score that definitely helps the movie’s plot flow. The visuals are incredible and it really felt theatrical. I loved how the dragon looked, it was genuinely terrifying and the voice acting was insanely good, the dark tone alongside all the tension brings us one of the best movies of the year.
Not everything is perfect, as usual. Despite the CGI being excellent, you will notice some flaws, mostly when you see the dragon interacting with the humans and fighting them. And as I mentioned before, the plot takes a while until it kicks in strong, it takes a little bit until you get fully engaged with the story, but once the dragon appears it’s pure action packed with some great scenes.
Millie Bobby Brown has undoubtedly become one of Netflix’s most prominent and impressive talents, and I’m all for it. Damsel delivers a surprisingly dark and thrilling film, complete with an epic showdown featuring Millie Bobby Brown and a dragon – a matchup you never realized you wanted until this moment.
Damsel releases on Netflix on March 8.
