DreamWorks Tries Turning Blue with the Adolescent Transformation Comedy Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

When DreamWorks Animation first arrived on the scene nearly a quarter-century ago, the company was clearly torn between high-mindedly shepherding American animation further into the dramatic ambition of ’90s Disney at its best, and gleefully thumbing its nose at the proprieties of the Mouse House. The latter, presumably a pet project of vengeance-minded DreamWorks impresario Jeffrey Katzenberg, sometimes involved less satire than attempting to undermine its competitor by beating them to market (see Antz, in theaters just before Disney/Pixar’s A Bug’s Life) or insouciantly riding their coattails when that wasn’t possible (see Shark Tale in the wake of Finding Nemo; just kidding, do not ever see Shark Tale). In the years since, DreamWorks has thankfully drifted away from direct rivalry with Disney – there are simply too many other big-studio animation houses that exist now, in part because of DreamWorks’ success – but there are still lingering traces of their erstwhile animosity. So as Disney celebrates its latest sorta-live-action redo from their library of beloved animated classics, DreamWorks has its own not-so-little mermaid serve as the not-so-secret bad guy of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, an otherwise not-especially-satirical animated coming-of-age comedy.

Ruby (Lana Condor), by contrast with Ariels past and present, isn’t an angel-voiced princess of the sea. She’s a blue-skinned, noseless, suspiciously flexible and long-fingered teenager, inexplicably fitting in at her seaside high school with her family’s Coneheads-esque cover story that they’re simply Canadian. In reality, they’re a family of human-scaled kraken, who require proximity to the ocean but must also be careful not to actually fall in, lest they reveal their origins. Warned off by her high-achieving mother Agatha (Toni Collette), Ruby does her best to simply not be seen, though she has managed to make two close friends and tutor her crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) in math. Chelsea (Annie Murphy), on the other hand, floats into Ruby’s school as a transfer student with boundless confidence and an unmistakably Ariel-like shade of bright red hair. She’s the Little Mermaid as a living Bratz doll, and a marked contrast to Ruby’s more timid existence.

But when Ruby saves Connor from the briny depths during a promposal gone wrong, she discovers her true kraken powers, which are much greater than her family has ever told her. Tutored by her underwater-dwelling warrior-queen grandma (Jane Fonda), Ruby explores these newfound abilities and investigates a long-standing rivalry between krakens and mermaids. And just as Ruby engages in tween-friendly versions of both high school shenanigans and Aquaman-esque mythology, her movie keeps zipping back and forth between the tedious comfort of DreamWorks traditions and something freer of animated-franchise expectations. The movie, directed by Kirk DeMicco, is bookended by the usual opening here’s-the-deal-with-this-world narration and the usual closing dance party, while its animation has a buoyancy closer to what Sony routinely turns out. The kraken characters are living embodiments of old-school squash-and-stretch cartooning, and even the humans are pleasingly caricatured: Witness Will Forte as a grizzled sea captain, obsessed with defeating a real kraken.