Full disclosure right up front. I am not a brony, even with two girls who both love the show and toys I never payed much attention. I never really watched the show with them, and only caught pieces of a handful of episodes. Sufficed to say, “My Little Pony: The Movie” was not made for me. Even though I do enjoy a good child’s cartoon, show or movie. From what little I saw of the show, it seemed cute and really pushed elements of friendship just as the subtitle ” Friendship is Magic” suggests.
The film begins the ponies getting ready for a huge celebration honoring the princesses of Equestria, when they are invaded by creatures lead by a pony with a broken unicorn horn named Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt). The Mane 6 lead by Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong) escape and must travel beyond their realm for help to reclaim their land from the wicked Storm King (Liev Schreiber) . Along the way they meet a sneaky cat named Capper (Taye Diggs) and a group of bird pirates led by Captain Celaeno (Zoe Saldana). The Ponies do their best to use their power of friendship to encourage the help of their new friends as well as the mysterious seaponies.
Again I will reiterate, this movie was not made for me just as the cartoon was not. I did get the same vibe from the movie as I did the show. There is not much in the way of depth, just a simple message of friendship, but still filled with the complications that come with dealing with different personalities. I do get the impression that this movie comes quite a few years behind schedule. Even though the show is still running and they already had their spin-off occur in the Equestria Girls this seems like a ‘too little, too late’ type deal. The movie has few cute moments, and the songs feel extremely forced and not catchy at all. In the end “My Little Pony: The Movie” would have been more at home as a direct-to-video, or streaming movie than a theatrical one.
