Director: Todd Grimes
Distributor: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Duration: 72 minutes
DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain (DVD) – Movie Review
The DC superheroes have been popular for a long time already, and they keep being popular to this day. Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things is a concept many of us seem to love. LEGO jumped on the bandwagon as well when they came up with their DC Super Hero Girls, a series for children, where girls take the lead. This different take on the franchise is quite fun, and next to the series itself, there is now also the film ‘Brain Drain’, where once again evil has to be fought. Will the Super Hero Girls be strong enough this time around to keep the city safe?
When Supergirl (Anais Fairweather), Wonder Woman (Grey DeLisle) and Batgirl (Ashlyn Nicole Selich) hear about a robbery taking place, they immediately hurry to the scene of the crime. They can’t believe their eyes when they see what’s going on, as Bumblebee (Teala Dunn) and Katana (Stephanie Sheh), two of their fellow students at Super Hero High are stealing jewels from a safe. They manage to get away though, and thus the trio hurries after them. They follow the two to an abandoned warehouse in an alley somewhere outside the city center.
Next thing they know, they wake up in their own room, and all that has happened just seems like a weird dream, but when they arrive at school, everybody is suddenly very hostile towards the three of them. Not much later, they get summoned to principal Waller’s (Yvette Nicole Brown) office, where they are accused of all kinds of wrongdoings, such as vandalizing the arena, releasing bats in the corridors, and putting the principal’s car on top of the Amethist tower. The girls deny everything, as they simply don’t remember a single thing of what they are being accused of, but the principal is clear: the only way for them to make things right, is to tell her where the Amethist is now. Since the girls can’t answer that question, they are expelled, but they are determined to get to the bottom of this. They soon find out that some kind of diamond has been controlling their minds, and causing short term memory loss. That already explains a lot, but who used the diamond? And who stole the Amethist? While some questions are answered, many others arise. The girls still have a lot to do, and the clock is ticking.
It’s a nice idea to give the protagonists short term memory loss, so they can try to find out what happened to them – and the world for that matter – during this period of time. The story keeps being straightforward all the time, but the creators tried to keep things interesting by adding in some action sequences and funny scenes. These sequences feel a bit forced though, as if they were just added in to keep the story going a little while longer, as it could otherwise easily have been told in a fraction of the time. While children probably won’t notice this very much, we would have preferred it if the story was made a bit more complicated to make it longer, instead of the meaningless scenes the creators opted for now. Where the story let us down a bit, the visuals made up just a little, as the film looks colorful and fun, be it a bit cheap too though.
While we weren’t a big fan of the storyline, it ought to be said that the voice actors did a pretty good job. It all sounds a bit over the top, but that actually suits the story and the characters pretty well, as they are all very enthusiastic and eager to fight their enemies.
LEGO movies often don’t serve any extras, and DC Superhero Girls: Brain Drain is no exception to that. We didn’t really miss any extras either, we must say, as there wasn’t really anything extra we longed to know after watching the film. Nonetheless, a link to the series or some trailers for other movies would have been some simple bonus features to add.
Conclusion
DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain offers a nice enough storyline, even though it could have done with more depth. Children will love it well enough, while adults will probably expect more than they get. The voice acting is well done though, and makes the whole feel quite fresh and lively after all.
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