I went to the new animated movie Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken today and I was the only person in the theater. I do love that. It allowed me to not have to suffer this movie in silence.

Honestly, I did not like this much. I would admit that Ruby Gillman is not necessarily targeting me as its main audience. However, this was the same studio that made Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon which were two amazing animated movies that could be enjoyed by adults and kids alike. They were intelligent, clever and entertaining. Ruby Gillman is not much of any of those adjectives.

Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor) is a 16-year old Kraken pretending to be Canadian and attending a normal high school. Her mother Agatha (Toni Collette) has insisted that Ruby never reveal the truth behind her Kraken heritage. She is determined to keep Ruby out of the water.

When Ruby’s crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) falls into the water and starts to drown, Ruby goes after him, discovering that she has more abilities than she knew.

Ruby finds her way to her Grandmamah (Jane Fonda), who just happens to be the Queen of the Kraken.

At this point, Ruby meets up with a mermaid named Chelsea (Annie Murphy), who was also pretending to be human at the school. They bond and spend time swimming together. Chelsea tells Ruby a story about their mothers fighting over a trident and how they could retrieve it and bring peace to the oceans.

The animation of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was fine. The colors were bright and flashy for the little kids. The character designs were okay, but did not jump off the screen as being tremendously interesting. I could see this being a solid work of animation for a TV program, but as a feature film, it could not reach levels of past glory for this studio, let alone other more exceptional animation studios.

The story was simple and straight-forward, dealing with a typical theme of being who you are, not hiding who you are. Other themes of this movie get all messed up and mishmashed together. I immediately knew what was going to happen and I really wished it would have taken a different path. They had a couple of cool concepts here, but it was so clichéd that it was hard to watch.

I enjoyed the voice work by Jane Fonda, especially the insistence of being called “Grand-MA-MAH.” Toni Collette does a reasonably decent job of balancing the chaotic worry over her daughter with the calmness of trying to pass along vital info. I like Sam Richardson, but his character Uncle Brill was not funny and one of the more annoying of the characters.

As I said, I would not be the targeted audience for Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. I was pretty bored early and I did not find a lot of charm here. Younger kids might find it more acceptable, but it certainly cannot reach the stars of some of Dreamworks classic animated films.

2.6 stars