Strange Magic: I Could Have Been Doing Literally Anything Else

So I finally watched the movie Strange Magic made in 2015, and um well. Not impressed.

Let's start with a summary.

A land divided by two kingdoms. One of light, and fairies, and elves. The other, shadow and bugs and dark creatures. The lands are divided by a border of primroses, the key ingredient to making a love potion. However, the king of the Dark Kingdom, the Bog King, hates love. He locked away the only person who can make the love potion and routinely cuts the primroses down so no one can make a love potion. Until one day a fairy convinces an elf to go over to the Dark Kingdom to get a love potion. The elf uses it on the fairy princess he has fallen in love with. But the Bog King and his forces capture her, and she falls for the Bog King.

Art Style

I didn't like the art style at first, and the way everything looked, but it slowly grew on me. Up until the weird psychedelic scene sequence where the oldest princess, Marianne, and the Bog King confess their love for each other.

That actually hurt my eyes a bit.

Songs and dialogue

Oh, my dear lord. I almost stopped watching after only 20 minutes in because of all the songs. I actually paused at one point, and I was about 35 minutes in, and there had already been like 10 songs!

I'm sorry, what? Why so many?

Look, I like musicals, loved High School Musical when it came out. I was 10. But holy crap. This movie takes the cake.

To me, it felt like the writers couldn't write dialogue, so they used songs in place of actual dialogue.

For like the first 45 minutes of the movie, there would be a song, 2 lines of dialogue, then another song. Then a line or 2 of dialogue, then another song. Rinse and repeat.

The dialogue didn't get good until Marianne shows up at the Bog King's castle to rescue her sister. My favorite part was when Marianne found out her sister had fallen in love with the Bog King because of the love potion, and they had a quick conversation about getting an antidote, and the Bog King was working on it.

Seriously, entirely way too many songs.

Some of the songs worked well for the story, and some I could have lived without. For example, "Falling in Love" and "Strange Magic" worked well. But the scene with Roland and Marianne having that argument at the spring ball, and it was 2 songs overlapping, not a fan.

I also wasn't the biggest fan of the singing.

There was one song I felt was completely unnecessary or poorly timed, and that was the one where the Bog King was at the elf festival, and he is on stage and just randomly starts singing about how he is misunderstood when that wasn't even the conversation at the time.

Part of what makes a good musical is the timing of the song as well as the context of the conversation before and after the song.

Actual Story

I liked the title. Short, sweet, and describes the movie.

I think they had a good idea for the plot. I just don't think it was executed well.

For starters, in the beginning it feels like they are trying a little too hard to be mysterious, leaving unanswered questions to keep the viewer hooked. Like the whole thing about the sugar plum fairy wanting to talk about "that fateful day".

It's a good idea and can work, but the way they did it and where they introduced that piece of information - what was it, 40 minutes in? It felt like they were backtracking because they didn't add some details in the beginning.

For example, in the opening they set the scene by talking about the 2 kingdoms and the primroses and then jumped straight into the story. No, nothing about what was actually happening. Like they could have talked about the Bog King and how he hated love so much he imprisoned the only person who could make a love potion, and how he would cut the primroses down so no one else could.

But no, they left that out.

So during the first 30 minutes or so, I'm sitting there confused because I can't figure out or understand why everyone was scared of the Dark Forest. I don't think it was ever actually explained why they were scared when they saw primroses. It was mentioned that they are used to make a love potion, but that was pretty much it until you get to the spring ball scene and the fairy convinces the elf to go to the Dark Forest for a love potion.

Also, timeline. I'm sorry, what was the freaking timeline in this movie!? It starts with Marianne getting ready to get married. Can't even properly pick up or hold a sword. -

5 minutes later. She's a master at the sword.

But to me, as the viewer, it looked like it all happened on the same day. And having the characters say "oh, on the wedding day" or "It's the elf spring ball" tells me nothing about the timeline!

Good Stuff

As I said before, the story concept was a good one. The art style is actually pretty good.

The concept of everyone deserves love, the love potion idea, and the main plot points of the story were all good. And minus the songs and the way and when they inserted certain pieces of information, the timeline. The storyline did flow.

Sort of.

I'm sorry, I'm really having a hard time finding anything I liked about the movie.

I mostly spent the whole time staring at the T.V. with a disgusted look on my face.

Final Thoughts

Would I watch Strange Magic again?

Absolutely not.

Would I recommend it?

Also no.

I can see what they were trying to do. I can appreciate the idea behind the story, and there were definitely parts that I thought had potential. But there were just too many things that didn't work for me.

The excessive songs, the awkward placement of some of them, the confusing timeline, the way information was introduced, and some of the dialogue made this movie feel much longer than it actually was.

And honestly, I spent most of the movie wondering why I was still watching it.

I could have been doing literally anything else.