In the seaside town of Oceanside, 16-year-old Ruby Gilman lives with her family despite being a kraken. Her mother, Agatha, forbids her from attending prom due to its location on a ship in the ocean. Ruby accidentally knocks her crush, Connor, into the water and saves him, but Connor believes he was saved by Chelsea Van Der Zee. Ruby notices weird suction cups on her fingers and hides in the library.
Ruby’s transformation causes her to destroy the library and run to the lighthouse to hide. Agatha chases her, unites with her brother, Brill, who had been sent to retrieve Ruby by her grandmother. Agatha calms Ruby down and she shrinks down to her normal size. Ruby’s father, Arthur, and her little brother, Sam, discover her transformation and Agatha explains how her earlier mishap triggered her transformation.
Angered that Agatha withheld the truth from her, Ruby sneaks out to meet her grandmother, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, Grandmamah reveals that she is a princess and next in line to take the throne She also reveals that outside the leviathans and Umibozu, the mermaids are the most malevolent creatures in the seas and have found a powerful trident called “The Trident of Oceanus” to rule the ocean. Agatha, the greatest Kraken warrior, trapped them for eternity.
Ruby tries to return to her normal life, by footage of her in her Kraken form becomes viral. She has a “Super Sea Girl Ditch Day” with Chelsea, who tells her that her mother, the mermaid Queen Nerissa, was supposedly killed trying to retrieve the Trident. Ruby trains with Grandmamah to be powerful enough to get it.
On prom night, Ruby tells her mother about Chelsea, but Agatha forbids her from seeing her grandmother. Ruby retrieves the Trident but is betrayed by Chelsea, who reveals she is Nerissa and uses Ruby to reclaim the trident to exact revenge on the Krakens. Nerissa overpowers Agatha and Grandmamah, and Ruby goes to the surface to stop Nerissa.
My review
Rating: 8.3/10
This movie is very entertaining and fun to watch. This movie is very well-made, and the animation is very beautiful. I liked Ruby’s character development evolved throughout the movie. I also liked how the rest of the krakens easily accepted her into their kingdom.
I love this movie, but I don’t understand how this movie wasn’t hyped that much and didn’t have a lot of marketing. I recommend this movie to young adults or people turning into adults. This is a very sweet and heartfelt movie. I love the character Nerissa/Chelsea, I think she has a fantastic character design. This movie has awesome storytelling! DreamWorks never fails to disappoint!
Ruby is a great protagonist, and she is very relatable, she has reasonable motivations to move the plot forward, which is kind of rare to see during a movie. She is a very likeable character.
The plot may not be complex; however, the simple plot makes this movie awesome, and the story is very straightforward during the middle. I liked the sarcastic comments on the announcements before the two girls ditched school to go to the sea.
The plot does follow a cliché of a teenager dealing with not fitting in with others but it’s because she’s a kraken, not because she is insecure about acne or whatever. This film is nice to watch.
This movie is decently good, and I enjoy and highly recommend it. This movie is underrated but it’s not an over-the-top amazing movie.