My Little Pony: The Movie – My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

Directed by: Jayson Thiessen | 99 minutes | animation, adventure, comedy, family, fantasy, musical | Dutch voice cast: Anneke Beukman, Melise de Winter, Christa Lips, Liezmijn Libgott | Original voice cast: Uzo Adaba, Ashleigh Ball, Adam Bengis, Emily Blunt, Kristin Chenoweth, Michelle Creber, Taye Diggs, Brian Dobson, Andrea Libman, Max Martini, Britt McKillip, Peter New, Mark Oliver, Nicole Oliver, Michael Peña, Zoe Saldana , Liev Schreiber, Sia, Tabitha St. Germain, Tara Strong, Sam Vincent, Cathy Weseluck

Girls who grew up in the eighties and nineties remember them: My Little Pony. Toys that 35 years later still capture the imagination of girls and, thanks to the Internet, now even have a loyal and fanatical fan base among adults – the so-called ‘bronies’. It all started in 1981 with a toy line of pastel colored plastic horses, each with its own characteristic colors and symbols, still under the name ‘My Pretty Pony’. It was the second, smaller variant launched a year later that really got the cash register rolling. The American toy manufacturer Hasbro made such good money that the ponies got their first animated film in 1986, with the voices of Danny De Vito, his wife Rhea Perlman, Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn (two years earlier there was already a TV movie about the horses). The success of that film was followed by the TV series ‘My Little Pony ‘n Friends’ (61 episodes, split between 1986 and 1987) and a few years later ‘My Little Pony Tales’ (1992, 26 episodes). After relatively less successful new versions that hit the market in the late 1990s, My Little Pony has seen a resurgence in the 21st century, thanks to the ‘Friendship is Magic’ line launched in 2010. Lauren Faust, the woman behind the success of ‘The Powerpuff Girls’, was asked to create a new series based around the ponies. This series is still running in 2017 and the toy and clothing line is a resounding success among girls aged four to eight years. A new cinema film could not be missed and that is what happened: ‘My Little Pony: The Movie’ (2017).

The theme of the current generation of My Little Ponies is ‘Friendship is magic’. That is the motto of the film. At the center is pony princess Twilight Sparkle, who lives in the kingdom of Equestria. Here all horses live side by side, whether they are unicorns, pegasus or ‘earthly’ ponies. Twilight is the princess of friendship, and to give that extra power she organizes a big party in and around Canterlot Castle. But her plans threaten to fall apart when the evil Storm King sends his second, an embittered unicorn with a broken horn named Tempest Shadow, to capture the four magical pony princesses. When the Storm King possesses their powers, he is the most powerful figure in all of Equestria. Tempest unleashes a bunch of scary monsters who manage to capture three of the four princesses; only Twilight manages to escape, along with her friends Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and the baby dragon Spike. It’s up to them to save Equestria from the evil Storm King. In their search for a way to fight him, they encounter an opportunistic stray cat, a band of buccaneers on a flying pirate ship and the underwater world of sea ponies Princess Skystar and her mother, Queen Novo. They also learn an important lesson about the value of friendship and how you can move forward together in your quest.

Anyone who thinks that My Little Pony is all about brightly colored ‘fluffy’ horses who think everything is fun and wonderful, dance and sing all the way through and experience happy adventures, has not yet met the current generation of horses. Because Twilight, Rainbow Dash and the likes may still look very colorful and cuddly, in the film they have to deal with dark forces. For a film primarily aimed at little girls, ‘My Little Pony: The Movie’ is quite suspenseful and dark. There is even some violence involved. Lauren Faust has reportedly been brought in to rid My Little Pony of its girlish image, and it shows in this film. Those grim moments, however, are frequently interspersed with cheerful dime-a-dozen songs that aren’t boring to listen to, but barely stick, and the animations dominated by an exuberant color palette, big eyes inspired by Japanese Manga and luscious mane. in an otherwise rather uninspired whole. In addition, there is, of course, the overriding message, which is imposed very thickly: friendship is a valuable thing. Young girls who are not overly anxious will be completely engrossed in the adventure. For the fathers and mothers who came along, it is a bit of a bite.