Equestria Girls has had two movies now. The first movie was a clumsy, but decent attempt at a whole new universe, the second movie, Rainbow Rocks didn't really do anything special and was just a generic, mediocre sequel. The biggest problem with Rainbow Rocks is that as a sequel, it did little to develop the Equestria Girls universe beyond the initial novelty and concept of "My Little Pony except humans". The movie came off as very lacking and repetitive as a result. The first movie was a check swing, Rainbow Rocks was a swing and a miss. Two strikes down.
So here we are with the third movie, Friendship Games. Does it finally deliver what Equestria Girls'' desperately needs? Is the spinoff ready to get off the training wheels? Well, Friendship Games delivers that and more. Not only did this movie not strike out, it belted a single. I consider it the best film of the series.
That's enough with the baseball analogies, on to why I like this film.
What I like most about this movie is how it deconstructs the concept of magic and the consequences of Sunset Shimmer bringing Princess Twilight's crown into the human world. The prior films did little to nothing to address this. The human characters seemingly not notice or are unaffected by the weird magical pony transformations and the destruction magic has caused.
For once, friendship is magic is not the end all answer to the characters' problems. In fact, magic consistently makes the situation worse throughout the movie, and it's up to Sunset Shimmer to figure out what is going on, and curb this. The human universe's Twilight however, is curious about the magical goings-on, perhaps dangerously so.
What was a bit of a let down in this movie are the "antagonists". Canterlot High's rivals, the Crystal Prep Shadowbolts. We're only introduced to them once, and we don't see much of them again. They only exist as shadow archetypes to the Humane Six. There is only one true antagonist in the film, the very manipulative and cold Principal Cinch. She's very boring, but that's only because she has no special magic powers, but she plays an instrumental role in the creation of the real danger of the film's climax, but I won't spoil it for you.
Overall, Friendship Games is a marked improvement over the first two movies. Is it a great movie? No. But it's a good one the only one of the series I will ever go out of my way to watch again. It builds upon the world of Equestria Girls, and plays things a little differently and creatively instead of riding the coattails of its parent series and it's novelty. The spinoff is building a whole different identity for itself and is a very welcome development.
Threes a Charm. Now we're getting somewhere.
Equestria Girls has had two movies now. The first movie was a clumsy, but decent attempt at a whole new universe, the second movie, Rainbow Rocks didn't really do anything special and was just a generic, mediocre sequel. The biggest problem with Rainbow Rocks is that as a sequel, it did little to develop the Equestria Girls universe beyond the initial novelty and concept of "My Little Pony except humans". The movie came off as very lacking and repetitive as a result. The first movie was a check swing, Rainbow Rocks was a swing and a miss. Two strikes down.
So here we are with the third movie, Friendship Games. Does it finally deliver what Equestria Girls'' desperately needs? Is the spinoff ready to get off the training wheels? Well, Friendship Games delivers that and more. Not only did this movie not strike out, it belted a single. I consider it the best film of the series.
That's enough with the baseball analogies, on to why I like this film.
What I like most about this movie is how it deconstructs the concept of magic and the consequences of Sunset Shimmer bringing Princess Twilight's crown into the human world. The prior films did little to nothing to address this. The human characters seemingly not notice or are unaffected by the weird magical pony transformations and the destruction magic has caused.
For once, friendship is magic is not the end all answer to the characters' problems. In fact, magic consistently makes the situation worse throughout the movie, and it's up to Sunset Shimmer to figure out what is going on, and curb this. The human universe's Twilight however, is curious about the magical goings-on, perhaps dangerously so.
What was a bit of a let down in this movie are the "antagonists". Canterlot High's rivals, the Crystal Prep Shadowbolts. We're only introduced to them once, and we don't see much of them again. They only exist as shadow archetypes to the Humane Six. There is only one true antagonist in the film, the very manipulative and cold Principal Cinch. She's very boring, but that's only because she has no special magic powers, but she plays an instrumental role in the creation of the real danger of the film's climax, but I won't spoil it for you.
Overall, Friendship Games is a marked improvement over the first two movies. Is it a great movie? No. But it's a good one the only one of the series I will ever go out of my way to watch again. It builds upon the world of Equestria Girls, and plays things a little differently and creatively instead of riding the coattails of its parent series and it's novelty. The spinoff is building a whole different identity for itself and is a very welcome development.