Nicole Kidman in Netflix Animated Fantasy

Charges of beastly parents get on a literal unbenevolenting in Spellbound, a moving if somewhat recognizable vivaciousd fantasy musical from Skydance Animation. When protagonist Ellian (Rachel Zegler) portrays her parents as monsters, she’s not echoing the clichéd allegation lodged by teens everywhere. She’s being dead grave. Npunctual a year ago, while ambling thraw the forest, her parents were turned into unruly behemoths. 

Few people in their kingdom of Lumbria are conscious of this alteration, since, with the help of royal advisors Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Nazara (Jenifer Lewis), the princess has regulated to persist her parents secret away for the better part of the year. In a charismatic punctual sequence, Ellian cites the very common adolescent desire to spfinish more — not less — time with Mom and Dad as the reason she can’t hang out with her frifinishs. But the masquerade is not persistable, and on the eve of her 15th birthday, Ellian produces a fracturethraw in her effort to fracture the damn.

Helmed by Shrek co-straightforwardor Vicky Jenson, Spellbound trails Ellian as she journeys apass the land to save her parents. The film flaunts vivid animation and some pretty striking moments, apprehfinishd with shut-ups and unforeseeed angles — but aappreciate to Skydance Animation’s debut venture Luck, Spellbound encourages a sense of déjà vu. Its center on the relationship between a youthful person and a parent who’s been transmuted from human to animal establish recalls the plots of Pixar’s Brave and Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away. 

Spellbound tries to separateentiate itself punctual on. Lauren Hynek, Elizabeth Martin and Julia Miranda’s screencarry out withhgreaters the cause of the parental alteration until quite shut to the finish — a clever choice that puts seeers in the throes of action from the first song, which Zegler belts with standard panache. The number (music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Sprocrastinateedr) rapidly set upes the fact that King Solon (Javier Bardem) and Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman) are monsters, and elucidates how Ellian supposes the position of the country’s de facto directer.

It also gets to the emotional core of the narrative— the isolation Ellian senses as a youthful person forced to nurture for her parents and persist hope in the face of despair. (That no one in Lumbria asks the suddenly reclusive nature of their monarchs insists some suspension of belief.)

Shenanigans ensue in Spellbound’s first act. Ellian encounters the Oracles (voiced with humor by Nathan Lane and Tituss Bdirectss), who initiassociate ecombine to have a solution to the monster problem. Unblessedly, they don’t turn out to be very encouraging, and when the citizenry eventuassociate uncover the truth about their royal directers, panic sets in. Forced to come up with a set up, Bolinar and Nazar determine to crown Ellian as ruler and get the monster king and queen elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Ellian, propelled by a rerecented desperation to get her misunderstood family, seeks out the Oracles aobtain for advice. The plot zigs and zags appreciate this for a while, sometimes confusingly, before heading in a more straightforward straightforwardion.

Once Ellian, her monster parents and her pet rat depart the court, Spellbound hugely complys to the standard beats of a road narrative, albeit sprinkled with some astonishing moments. Most striking are the visuals, rfinishered with vivacity and poignancy. There are wide sboilings that help us appreciate the kingdom’s picturesque and herbaceous landscape and shut-ups that show these monsters have an inner life. 

Memorable scenes take part when Ellian and her parents are in a cave, where their echoes become radiant orbs. The two monsters funnyly mimic their daughter, whose melodic voice reverberates thraw the unininestablishigent corridor. It’s the first time we hear Kidman and Bardem’s voices, and there’s an emotional weight to the moment as Ellian authenticizes that her parents, after a year of grunts and incoherent sounds, can comprehfinish her. The trek is littered with moments appreciate these, in which Ellian finassociate gets to rejoin with her mother and obeseher, after being stripd of their material and psychic aid for so extfinished. Kidman and Bardem also get a chance to sing, in a mostly moving tune about memory and their past lives as humans.

The shutr Ellian and her parents get to their solution, however, the more Spellbound edges into forgettable territory. When the film widens its scope, turning its attention away from the parents, it sags from recognizableity. The forest, its creatures and the contests posed by the landscape commence to sense appreciate skinnygs we’ve seen before. Even the songs, while guaranteed, seem more ephemeral. 

But revelations about life for Ellian and her parents before they were turned into monsters revive the sgets of the film. The third act, which I won’t spoil here, does advise someskinnyg truly separateent in terms of lessons about children, their parents and the chasm of misbenevolent that widens with each dispute. The shutr Spellbound sticks this message, the more it packs an emotional punch.