Thelma the Unicorn Review: A Magical and Sometimes Muddy Stardom Adventure
Title: Thelma the Unicorn
Director: Jared Hess, Lynn Wang
Based on: Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey
Release Date: May 17 2024
Summary
Being an ordinary pony of a farm, Thelma (Brittany Howard) dreams of becoming a singer in stardom. She is best friends with the donkey, Otis (Will Forte), who is in a musical band with her. However, she starts getting tired of her plain old farm life. When a pink and glitter-combined disaster strikes on her appearance, she magically becomes a unicorn. This disaster becomes the case for her stardom. Throughout this fame-filled adventure, she learns the true cons of being a famous musical star.
Reasons
The most sparkling strengths are its great music, fun story, and colorful animation! Hence it is a musical adaptation, the songs are catchy and great for kids, although they might not be anything special. "Fire Inside" would one of the best examples of this because of how Brittany Howard uses her singing talent. The rock instrumental and rhythmic lyrics compliment how this is the best song from this movie's soundtrack. Again, this is supposed to be a children's book adaptation with nothing new put to the table. However, Netflix’s version of the story can appeal well to younger kids. Unicorns are believed to be special and sparkly creatures. In this movie’s case, unicorns are symbolism of the gorgeous stars people stan. Just like from the movie, they face controversies, scandals, and mistreatment, which is common in their celebrity life. With Mikros Animation (The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales…,The Tiger’s Apprentice, and Orion and the Dark) involved, the animation is impressive and colorful. The character designs, particularly Thelma herself, look appealing and meaningful to kids, although they can fairly go into the Uncanny Valley category. All of the characters move smoothly, even when it comes with complicated choreography, showing that it might be a probable film for theaters instead of Netflix themselves. No hate towards Netflix, though!
For the second part, the other strengths that make this movie sparkle are the characters, message, and humor! A lot of the characters, especially Thelma and Otis, are relatable and likable, for the audiences to resonate with. Their insecurities are very relatable towards those who dream of becoming popular and spoiled. The villains, like Megan, are good but they come off as rather awkward sometimes. Yes, it uuses the same old “be yourself” message again which is becoming an outdated trend. So many animated kids movies, especially the ones from the 2010s, use this motto multiple times. Unlike those ones, the movie uses the message in a more detailed and meaningful light. Although this is targeted towards kids and also for people in general, the moral is used to get kids to think twice about going into stardom when they grow up. The humor is also nothing really new but still serves great laughs for the whole family and other people. As the side for the primary slapstick humor, there are also some jokes that are related to the problems of stardom, which can serve as meaningful comedy!
There are still some muddy flaws to consider underneath its magical exteriors. The logic, especially the logic of talking animals, in this movie’s universe is confusing. It would mostly only work for anthropomorphic animals, such as The Bad Guys, but there aresome movies where the animals can understand humans and be treated as pets at the same time. Some of the background animals wear clothes and work with the humans, while the farm animals, like Thelma and Otis, understand, talk, and have pet treatments, which makes things more confusing. Just like some other Netflix animated movies, it is sometimes predictable, thanks to its underdog story of becoming yourself. In some parts, it is easy to tell what will come next. This is just meant to be an average problem, so it is not really that big of a story problem. Why? It is meant to be a kids movie mainly meant for younger kids.
Conclusion
Even if there are some story problems here and there, Thelma the Unicorn is an unexpectedly charming unicorn that has musical and entertaining “Fire Inside!” First of all, the music is the best part, hence it is a musical adaptation of one of Aaron Blabey’s projects. Plus, the animation adds to its musical and colorful tones. Also, both the story and message serve not only as advice for fame-seeking kids but also for insecure people in general. What the movie needs to fix is the logic of talking animals in the universe because of how it can confuse the viewer about how they have the ability to understand and function as people. In addition, the predictability is also a problem but this is more of an optional problem to fill in. For those who have a Netflix subscription, go give this unicorn some musical shine and sparkle!
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