Review of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, directed by Kirk DeMicco

For two years, before I found out I was moving to two different countries for over a year, I had an AMC subscription. For our non-American friends out there, AMC is a local theater chain where people can go to watch movies, and they have a subscription option that, if you see more than two movies a month, you got more than what you paid for in the subscription.

So that means I was going to the movies a lot throughout graduate school in order to let out some steam and see some of the movies I’d been seeing around on advertisements and through word of mouth. It also means that I get hit with a ton of the same trailers across a two month span, and Ruby Gillman was one of the ones I had to have seen at least five times.

Alas, I did not see the movie in theaters, though. I had no interest in seeing the movie because of how many times I had seen the trailer—I felt like at the time I had seen it all already. I was really bored and in need of procrastinating on my master’s thesis when I saw this film had been added onto Netflix one random day.

And I watched it right then and there! I needed something to rot my brain at the time, and this seemed like it would fit my needs at the time.

Here’s my review!

Ruby Gillman is a Kraken trying to live a normal human life, but things aren’t as easy as she thinks they will be.

Our protagonist in this story is Ruby, who lives in a Kraken family that disguises themselves among humans. Although it might seem obvious that something is up with this family, as Ruby is literally a purple and blue color, no one actually knows that Krakens exist. Minus the sailor guy who swears he saw one a while ago with his crab, but no one believes him.

Anyways, Ruby has a crush on her classmate Connor, but when her mother forbids her from going anywhere near the sea, it’s not going to stop Ruby from trying to ask him out. That attempt goes terribly, as he somehow ends up in the ocean at the end of it all, and Ruby jumps in after him in an attempt to be noble and save his life.

It’s down in the water she triggers her transformation into a Kraken, and one of her classmates takes credit for saving Connor. Ruby then turns into a gigantic Kraken while hiding in the library, which is noticed not only by her mother, but Chelsea as well. Her mother’s brother, Ruby’s uncle, Brill comes into town because he knows about the transformation, and Ruby gets the talk as to why she turns into a giant Kraken while in the water.

Brill agrees to help Ruby sneak into the ocean and meet her grandmother, who just happens to be the Warrior Queen. No big deal at all here. Her grandmother then tells Ruby she is in line for the throne, and will one day become protector of the sea, but other creatures, like the mermaids, have tried to take them down. The mermaid queen Nerissa was recently struck down by Ruby’s mother before she left behind her life under the sea.

Ruby then returns to the surface and is attached by the sailor who claims he saw a Kraken before, but she narrowly gets away with Chelsea’s help, who apparently is a mermaid. The sailor took footage though of her Kraken form, and it goes viral online. Chelsea befriends Ruby and they become underwater besties, and Chelsea says they should find the Trident and reunite the Krakens and the mermaids as species.

Then Ruby begins to train with her grandmother, but she doesn’t tell her what she is actually trying to do here. Ruby starts hanging out more and more with Chelsea, and her family tries to trick the sailor into thinking that he single handedly took down the Kraken problem.

But when Chelsea is shown to Ruby’s mother, she gets angry because of how Chelsea is a mermaid. Ruby runs off into the ocean, we learn from her mother, who visits the Grandmother, that Nerissa never had a daughter. They realize Ruby has been duped, but Ruby has retrieved the Trident and is promptly betrayed by Chelsea.

Turns out she was Nerissa, and she takes the Trident and transforms with it to take down the Krakens. She dismantles prom night as she does this, fighting against Ruby’s mother and grandmother, and then Ruby arrives to take down Nerissa herself for once and all. She stops the prom night ship from sinking, then, with the help of her relatives, combines powers to stop Nerissa for good.

The sailor then takes her captive, and Ruby’s classmates dub her their hero. Connor agrees to go to Prom with her, while Ruby’s family gets over their issues with each other. Soon after, they live their lives openly as Kraken on the surface, and Ruby prepares to stop a Devil Whale that is approaching the Kraken Kingdom.

Overall Thoughts

While I think this was a cute movie, it didn’t feel innovative beyond the way it depicts the Krakens and mermaids.

Like, for example, it felt like content I had already seen before. The story wasn’t something new nor innovative, and while I could relate to some of the emotions that Ruby was going through, I didn’t really find myself connecting with the movie beyond that.

I’m glad I watched it, but it won’t be going on my rewatch list probably. It’s a one and done kind of deal it seems. Go watch it though if you seem interested in the story or mythology it weaves in!

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