‘Ruby Gillman’ Reviews Roundup: A Sharp-Looking Coming-Of-Age Story That’s Perhaps Too Familiar

Dreamworks is riding high after the successes of last year’s The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The studio will be hoping for similar results with its latest film, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, which releases in theaters today.

The film is a coming-of-age story about an awkward 16-year-old who just wants to fit in at Oceanside High. There, she tutors her skater-boy crush, who barely seems to recognize her. At home, she has to deal with an over-protective mother, who has forbidden Ruby from ever getting in the water. When Ruby does what teenagers do and disobeys, she learns that she’s a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and will one day inherit the throne from her incredibly powerful grandmother.

The Kraken are, unlike their historic reputation suggests, actually protectors of the seas and constantly facing off against power-hungry mermaids who seek to replace them at the top of the ocean hierarchy. Imagine Ruby’s dismay then, when she learns that Chelsea, the most popular girl in school, is actually a mermaid.

Reviews for Ruby Gillman aren’t bad, but they don’t come close to the high bar set by last year’s Dreamworks releases. Most reviews are giving the film the equivalent of a three-star rating and comparing it to two recent Pixar films that are extremely similar narratively, Luca and Turning Red. Again, that’s setting a very high bar that Ruby hasn’t managed to reach.

Here’s what the reviews are saying about Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken.

Among the reviews we read, Ellen E Jones at The Guardian summed up the critical consensus best, writing:

Pixar’s Turning Red certainly had a neater metaphor for puberty’s metamorphoses, but in lieu of originality, this movie boasts some attractively tactile animation – the Gillmans’ slimy seaweed breakfast looks good enough to eat – and an excellent voice cast.

Kate Erbland at Indiewire was enthusiastic about the heart of Ruby Gillman, although expressed a desire for a bit more in the execution:

This may all seem familiar, and that’s both comforting and disappointing. Kids are always in need of gracious tales about the power of being yourself in a world not necessarily built to embrace differences (of all sizes, of all kinds) and stories like Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken can do that, with fun to spare. But why not get more splashy, why not take more risks, why not get bigger and weirder, when that’s also the aim of the very story you’re telling? Audiences of all ages deserve those leaps, the more giant, the better.

In her review for The Washington Post, Kristen Page-Kirby lamented a lack of originality in the film’s narrative, but says she enjoyed the film nonetheless:

On the whole, Ruby Gillman is not all that dissimilar from last year’s Turning Red in that it’s a story of a girl coming to terms with her familial and personal history, told through an engaging, endearing, shape-shifting protagonist. While it breaks no new ground and doesn’t soar to great heights, it’s a perfectly fine way to pass the time. And sometimes that’s just what you need.

Alonso Duralde’s review for The Film Verdict was one of the most damning that we saw, and ranked Dreamworks’ latest well behind its Pixar predecessors:

It’s no wonder that the Writers Guild of America feels concerned about the threat of AI — the latest from DreamWorks Animation, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, plays like the result of feeding the screenplays of recent Pixar titles Luca and Turning Red into Chat GPT and then animating the results. Unfortunately, this new coming-of-age tale doesn’t come anywhere near the depth or delight of its predecessors.

Finishing on a positive note, Nell Minow at RogerEbert.com thought the film was sufficiently original and rated Ruby as one of the year’s best family movies:

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a cheerful, colorful animated film about a shy, academically gifted young girl with a protective mother and devoted friends who transforms into a huge creature as a metaphor for adolescence, with multi-generational conflicts. Yes, it is similar to the terrific Turning Red, but this story has its own delights. One of the best family films of the year, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken has humor and heart, buoyant energy, witty and imaginative visuals, and never-less-than brilliant voice talent.