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starssoblue · 1 year ago

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miraculous: ladybug & chat noir, the movie | a(n in-depth) review

prefacing this to say that i recognize a lot of feelings about this movie are related to a frustration with experiencing the tv series for five seasons since 2015. i, however, went into this as a brand new fan, having finally tried the series just since april of this year. so those feelings of frustration aren't going to be present in this review and it's coming more from a (somewhat) objective place, considering the film as its own entity. (spoilers abound.)

marinette:

so i'm a marinette dupain-cheng shooter, i'll fight for this girl forever because of how targeted the hate is for her (and leading female characters in general). but i have to say, even though the movie did a good job not having her be the completely messy pre-teenager she is in the show (especially around her crush), i found that the character change was a little strange.

i think, despite how flustered she gets, marinette in the show is a very strong character. she's a child who spent three years being relentlessly bullied by a politician's daughter (chloe) that people she was generally (she has no good friends but she has an amicable relationship with her peers because they all grew up together) friendly with stayed away from her, for the fear of becoming that girl's next target. she tries her best to stay out of this girl's way because of this bullying, and her defense is to keep quiet and not draw attention to herself so she can get through the school day without being harassed. this harassment leads to marinette having intense anxiety and a lack of confidence in herself, despite having strong opinions and being an otherwise passionate person. meeting her new friend alya, who is very self assured, inspires marinette to not allow her bully to walk over her anymore, and when she gets her first win as ladybug she finds the strength to finally stand up for herself. though she remains a target of that bully, this newfound strength helps her not allow that experience to reign over her life and this gives her bully less power.

in the movie, marinette (there was one trailer that implied she was "the new girl" but the movie itself does not really give us this impression—her scared meekness would make more sense to me if she actually were a new girl in school but more on this later) still grew up in paris with those same peers, but has so much crippling anxiety she has no baseline relationship with anyone. instead of it being mere general awkwardness, the film decides to make her especially clumsy to the point of insane catastrophes constantly happening around her (i guess for her entire life?), and this chaos makes the entire school laugh at her and spread rumors about her, so she has no friends at all. (would make a lot of sense if she's the new girl unless the point is the entire school has been making fun of the wasian girl since maternelle that she's still infamous in lycée for it and spent her entire life without a friend until alya filmed chloe harassing her and saved her, which is... concerning. or wait, is it because they've just entered lycée so they're all technically "new" even though she's lived in paris her whole life because they're starting grade 10 together? but what are the chances that no one she knew from collége are in this school with her now? so she enters lycée, is so clumsy and catastrophes happen around her that she develops a reputation for herself and people like chloe know her by name because she's become that infamous that quickly? but in the song 'reaching out,' marinette sings that she always dreamed of calling paris home, which seems to suggest that maybe she's new in paris. but their bakery seems too established to be new... i don't know. tbh this is information we shouldn't have to guess, and this lack of clarity is something i struggled with for this film.)

as an introverted person, marinette's anxiety and fear of leaving her comfort zone resonate with me, but i feel like while this is explained in the show as a result of years of bullying, it's portrayed here in the extreme. i understand that she's afraid at school because of all the rumors and the disasters that follow her, but even on the streets when she was singing to herself, random people would wave to her and she'd (sing) to herself, "i can't show my face!" even though nothing embarrassing or disastrous had even happened. she's just deathly afraid of people. i don't think this in and of itself is an issue, but it definitely needed more explanation or build up. is marinette this terrified and timid because something (worse than what happened in the series?) happened to her here? is it because she's (new to paris? again, they don't really say but it would fit better if it were true) wasian and she feels out of place in largely white paris? is it more about her biracial identity rather than clumsiness? who knows. so i feel just more background and character development would elevate the movie. arguably, she could just be an anxious and introverted person, but the portrayal of these characteristics just seemed a lot more surface level than they are in the show. i guess this is an example of a limitation a creator has with a film—they can accomplish so much more with years of subtle hints in a series and lay the foundation for certain backgrounds and traits, but in a movie they have to figure out what to tell us, what to show us, and how to develop it in under two hours. sadly, i feel with marinette, as a result of this time crunch, some of the film's portrayals ended up being weak.

(there's this scene all over twitter celebrating marinette standing up to chloe after her newfound confidence as ladybug—i am actually very confused why this was pointed out as a difference from the series. once marinette realized through alya and her first success as ladybug that she didn't need to be afraid of chloe anymore, she stopped. she constantly argues with her, doesn't put up with her bullshit, and even is sometimes mean to her (i'm not going to judge her for it—that girl bullied her badly for three years straight sooo...). i like the scene in the movie too, but my point was that it's consistent with the show and not an actual change.)

people love to attack marinette for some instances where the character in the show was used for absurd comic relief, and i appreciate that the movie doesn't do this with her much. i do think the female characters in miraculous, series and film, would all be better written if written by women, but i digress.

i like that while film marinette tries to reject the earrings just like series marinette, she fails because the magic that has chosen her won’t just let her throw the earrings away or give it to someone else. though she doesn’t randomly decide to give the earrings to alya here, she does try to throw them out a window and they kept coming back to her because she was the chosen one. this was a nice change. i never thought it should be that easy for her to just re-gift them to any random person when they chose her specifically for a reason.

adrien:

adrien agreste in the series is outgoing, full of energy, lonely but eager to make friends, kind of optimistic. his mother has only been missing for six months at the start of the show, while he's in the public eye, working almost full time as a teen model and the face of his father's massively successful high fashion brand. his circumstances, his public image, the fact that not much time has passed and he's still a 13 year old child all lead him to resist being too affected by his grief (he's obviously still affected but it's not a crippling part of his life, and though he experiences loneliness and has moments of being withdrawn and sad, he retains a relatively optimistic and outgoing nature that influences his outlook on life and his interactions with his peers. he's socially inept through lack of interaction with kids his own age and homeschooling, but he's willing to learn and this, as well as his pure heart, are what define this character.

adrien in the movie is different, but in a way that is realistic and understandable given the changes the film made to his background. he's more quiet, withdrawn, lonely but chooses to stay that way and intentionally pushes people away as a coping mechanism for grief. though in both universes his father's role in his life decreases once his mother vanishes, and he essentially loses both parents rather than one, in the show, being a model and the face of his father's brand allows him to continue having a place in his dad's life even though his father treats him like dirt. in the movie, the time period in which his mother has been missing in his life seems to be much longer, and there has been no indication that adrien has anything to do with his father's work. with his grief affecting him for a greater length of time, his age being older, and his dad being an absentee parent for several years rather than a few months, it's no wonder that the adrien we meet in the movie chooses to pull away from people, allows the sad feelings to dominate, and just overall lacks the energy and optimism show adrien possesses. (i'm also not sure if it's even his first day of school or if he was homeschooled his whole life—chloe claimed she wanted to show him around, but nino interacts with him like they've been friends for more than just a day and he's known him for at least a little while).

honestly, i really like the changes here, despite being tv adrien agreste's #1 fan. this insight into his feelings about his parents, his resignation about his constantly deteriorating relationship with his father, his fixation on the piano which was an interest he shared with his mom, how palpable his feelings of nostalgia and longing are for his mother... the way he was a child when she disappeared and now he's a teenager still thinking about her, always missing her... it was such a natural portrayal of love and grief and though you can see which circumstances prevent show adrien from turning out this way, movie adrien is such an understandable and empathetic character. you really feel for him the whole movie. i think his (possible) lack of fame adds to this too (he doesn't seem to be a model in this, he has no schedules and isn't driven around everywhere, there are loads of photos of him at home but they could just be photos parents put up of their only son). at the end of the day he's a teenager with a father who neglects him constantly for his business and his own grief that he feels very alone, and these feelings keep him from wanting to get close to anyone else, either because he's sad or just afraid of further abandonment. i found the character so incredibly relatable and it was interesting seeing a more vulnerable side to this character, a vulnerability show adrien only occasionally demonstrates, a vulnerability more hinted at in the show through chat noir (but this is an essay for another day).

most importantly, show and movie adrien are both total dorks. the essence of this character is portrayed well in the movie, i really didn't mind the changes because in the end he was still recognizable as my sad sunshine adrien agreste, and i hope people look past the surface differences to recognize and appreciate him for who he is.

plagg plays a bigger role in adrien’s life in the series than in the movie. i love their relationship so i missed that here, but i also feel like maybe they didn’t need him to be looking out for adrien and essentially taking care of him (gorilla does this in the series too, and he wasn’t needed in the movie as adrien has the freedom to largely come and go as he wants and use public transport, something series adrien could never do) because of how much less restrictive his life is in this iteration.

ladynoir:

the film introduces ladybug and chat noir as "two rival heroes." plagg and tikki themselves are called rivals. eventually ladybug redubs them as "partners" after she and chat noir find a rhythm and master fu also tells them they're stronger together, so i am puzzled why they even tried introducing them that way. in the show, ladynoir aren't rivals at al—they've always been a team. and in this movie, despite those initial comments, it's no different. there's banter and flirtation for sure, but the most "rival" these two get are when they first meet and are goading each other into an argument over which hero is better and who is the sidekick (before they've done anything lmao) and that one fun volkswagon ad when they race each other. i love the flirty competitive sparring, the way they tease each other, when they're just messing around and being playful in the 'stronger together' sequence. you really watch these two become best friends, and like the series, chat noir falls in love with ladybug like a thunderbolt (a coup de foudre!) while for her, you see her affection for him grow the longer they work together and get to know each other. i don't think this is as much of a departure from the series as stan twitter would have you believe, but it does spend more time on their dynamic in one setting than any episode ever does (ladynoir is developed over time in the series, little by little, and their cute flirty dynamic is very reminiscent of how they're portrayed in the first two seasons before the guardianship and other miraculous holders complicated their relationship. at their core they've always had great chemistry and a strong connection). i like both developments tbh, but that one scene of them training together and having fun for a significant amount of time was so lovely to see. don't get me wrong—there are some great moments these two share outside of battle in the series too, but it's been a while since we've seen this dynamic there with everything else going on that it felt so nice to return to this, and in such a huge way too.

the one thing i miss is chat noir calling ladybug "milady." it's such a cute thing he does in the series, and though i enjoyed that "insane!" / "watermelon!" banter, i do miss this being what he calls her all the time. (there is a song called 'my lady' that chat noir sings to himself after he falls in love with ladybug, and in the very last line of the song he calls her this, but otherwise it's just not a thing in the movie.) it really doesn't matter, but i still mourned its absence.

adrienette/adrinette:

the first time i watched this film, i did not like the first adrien/marinette meet-cute at all. to be honest, i wasn't being fair. the first miraculous scene in the series that had me completely enchanted was that umbrella scene in origins, and it is the foundation for this ship and why i love them so much. every bit of the original scene is perfection, with the careful finger brush, the soft smiles, the way their eyes meet and marinette hears a thunder clap (an actual coup de foudre) in the distance as the instrumental 'in the rain' plays in the background... that scene was so spectacularly constructed, it was always obvious nothing this movie did was ever going to match that.

and that's okay.

watching the film a second time, i found that while the umbrella scene still is incomparable, there are things i did like about marinette and adrien's first meeting. the way marinette asks for "a little luck" and she follows the light through the bookshelves to see adrien, who approaches her himself because he thinks she might be in need of help, asking her if she's okay or seeing the distressed look upon her face and wondering if she's crying. it's different from origins, but in some ways it's the same—marinette was distressed, adrien approached her first, she's thrown by his kindness and flustered by his beauty. they have some kind of moment and in the end, he offers her an awkward but gentle smile.

but in origins, they already had history. she didn't care and barely realized he was famous or even connected to her dream of becoming a fashion designer. his looks don't register to her until she's already fallen in love with him. and it's his initiative to correct the misunderstanding between them and show her kindness despite her being harsh and unfair to him that makes her take a second glance, and once she does, she falls in love fast. though i do see the essence of that moment—the being drawn to adrien's kindness aspect—in the movie's library scene, it's less impactful. she doesn't know adrien, so there is barely a conversation between them, and other than his concern over her and his offer of a helping hand when she falls, i don't really see what he does that makes her fall strongly in love with him. if it's still his kindness, it just feels weaker. one could argue that her instant attraction to him is because of his cuteness, and this is what flusters her, and his kindness (less impact than the series, but in this new universe, barely anyone in this school has ever shown marinette kindness rather than gossiping and laughing about her clumsiness so maybe to her this is a real moment of kindness) is only secondary. it's not all that clear. either way, marinette is fascinated by him to keep looking at him before she even falls and he offers to help her up, so the meeting feels a lot more shallow (he had noticed her distress and asked if she was crying before, but i don't know... is just asking about her enough kindness to get that reaction from her? it makes sense after he helps her up but the fascination before.. maybe i'm just longing for the impact of the umbrella scene and this was actually fine...?). the scene ends with adrien's confused, soft smile when he says "she's so weird" to himself (they barely interacted, so i don't know if i'd call it a "fond smile" but it's not the malicious thing some people on social media have been making it out to be. in this iteration adrien tries not to interact with many people, so it's a big deal he was kind enough to still reach out to her. this meeting probably stuck out to him as something unordinary and the comment felt more like he was curious about her more than anything else. it ends up being important to marinette because her clumsiness makes people usually mock her, but he didn't do that, so her instinct then is to try to talk to him (and ask him out, probably?). not the big momentous falling in love scene from the series, but it is still a nice moment for these characters as they're established in this universe.

i think one of the reasons this ship feels weak to me in the film is that outside of this moment, adrien and marinette's friendship development is reduced to a musical montage.

if the movie had used this moment to develop their relationship further, i probably would have actually liked the romance here. while ladynoir had scenes of interactions and ladybug and chat noir getting to know each other and becoming comfortable with each other and literally becoming bffs who trust each other as only two people in the world who share a singular unique experience can, all the development adrien and marinette have is shown through one musical montage in the middle of the movie. (they do have a small interaction at the fair, but this is around the time adrien is first coming out of his shell so it’s very brief.) in the montage, you see many shots of adrien and marinette hanging out with alya and nino in picnics and at the movies, and he looks more at ease with each outing. and you also see adrien opening up to marinette specifically about his mom, sharing photos of her, and finally working through his grief rather than withdrawing from everyone. but because this is a five second scene in the midst of a musical montage illustrating the passage of time, we never get the words exchanged, the scene is glossed over and the impact is only felt by fans of the series who know what this means to him. (fun fact: the film has adrien trusting marinette enough to feel so close to her he talks about his mom with her before he talks to ladybug about her and how in his grief he pushed people away before he met her. though ladybug was the catalyst to him opening up to people, i do find it meaningful that he opened up to marinette first. but this is still a crumb and you have to be looking to make those connections in order to see them. the film should have shown adrien falling in love to some extent outside of the mask as well, he’s supposed to have some kind of inner conflict and it’s hard to believe that he does here with all the missing pieces.) i’m not sure if casual viewers would even notice it in the midst of all the other scenes happening as the theme song plays in the background. had we seen more of stuff like this, gotten some kind of explanation that over time adrien had started to feel for marinette too and this montage is proof of it (it shows that they’re friends and he trusts her now to some extent, but it’s so fast it barely registers. you can’t deduce he’s in love with marinette here, whereas in the scenes with chat noir you see ladybug actively struggle with her feelings, develop affectionate feelings for chat noir, and feel bad for rejecting him because of that, not just because it sucks to have to turn someone down), then that would have been fine. but that’s not what happens. after this montage we barely see adrien and marinette together at all until she tries asking him to he ball and he says he’s sorry but there’s someone else. though his rejection was soft, and you do see him look upset he had to reject her, there was no doubt he was going to reject her here. the core conflict—that they’re in love with two people, one they fall in love with like thunder and another that slowly builds in their heart—is so badly illustrated in this movie. you can see the intention is there if you’re looking for it, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

though i appreciate that marinette didn't struggle to find her words around adrien in this film, and appeared more realistically flustered and anxious rather than the over the top thing they do in the series, i still feel like the adrinette in the series is overall written and developed better as a ship. in the tv series, you see this initial conflict —chat noir falls fast for ladybug, who turns him down because marinette fell just as fast in love with adrien agreste—turn into marinette forming a friendship with chat noir, whom she then starts to get close to outside and in the mask, as adrien starts to fall in love with marinette. the series is now at a point where adrien and marinette are actually in love, despite never actually falling out of love with their superhero counterparts, so that if it finally leads to a reveal (which it hasn’t yet), it would be incredibly moving.

my issue is, without this adrinette relationship development, the reveal feels less impactful. if you’re frustrated the series hasn’t given you this moment yet, you feel satisfaction seeing it in the conclusion of this film solely because of the progression of the series. without it, looking at the moments in this film alone, it feels halfhearted. though marinette is ladybug, it’s an idealized version of herself she’s created to take on the challenge of being a hero. these characteristics are still hers, but it feels like someone falling in love with a celebrity. though this isn’t wholly true—chat gets to know ladybug’s vulnerabilities too as they get closer—it’s still not fully her the way marinette, as a normal person who now has the confidence being ladybug provides her echoing in her daily life too, is. so her struggling with her feelings, turning chat noir down reluctantly before adrien rejects her, but still reaching out to him once discovering they’re the same person—you just see that she falls in love with all sides of him. but it’s less clear for adrien. you can analyze that montage and make a deduction, but it’s not as explicit. instead, it just feels like he rejects who she actually is for her heroic persona, and that makes the reveal feel one-sided (unless you carry over your feelings of frustration from the series never giving us this moment).

it sucks that adrinette was underdeveloped because as far as scenes go, the reveal is actually quite beautiful. adrien has tears in his eyes when she introduces herself as ladybug and he realizes she liked him all along, but if we knew why those tears of relief and happiness appeared upon realizing the girl of his dreams was marinette, it would mean more. [he’s also at this ball wearing the bow tie marinette made for him that she threw into the trash after he rejected her, and i’d love to believe that this isn’t a continuity error, but it probably is. it’s hard to imagine adrien felt so torn up about rejecting marinette (after ladybug already rejected him??! like it really felt like he’d like to go to this ball that he never asked ladybug to go to alone rather than with marinette, which is…not great ) that he went by the trash, saw his name on a box and opened it up, realizing she made him a gift, and then chose to wear it. he literally doesn’t think about marinette once in this film after he rejects her so this feels like a reach… unless it was intentional, in which case they should have written so much more to make this (and this ship) clear.]

gabriel agreste:

i can't remember if origins explained how long gabriel agreste had the butterfly miraculous and if he used it right away upon acquiring it, but what i liked in the film was that it was clearly explained that he had had that artifact for a while, done research on its capabilities, considered the risks and rewards, and then after a long time of deliberation finally made the active choice to do what he knew was wrong just because he loved his wife so much he would never be able to live without her. ("if chaos is the way, i will burn the world and lose myself to do so!") each time he misuses the miraculous to hurt people, it takes a toll on his physical and mental health, making him look haggard and act more crazy and reckless (this happens in the series as well—season 1 gabriel isn't season 5 gabriel but he becomes more villainous over time).

one thing that confuses me though is that gabriel got a sense of the chaos and terror committed with the butterfly miraculous upon just touching the item, but the series and later on in the film, it's explicitly stated that this miraculous isn't inherently evil. in the show there are many reasons why ladybug and chat noir historically were called to fight, but in the movie it seems to be implied that it's this one miraculous alone that summons them through creating chaos in the world. but it's also allegedly 'good'—this contradiction is confusing (and my friend who had no knowledge of mlb was so lost watching this movie). i don't think the show does much for romanticizing this decision the way the film does, and it certainly doesn't make us believe that gabriel agreste felt forced to make this decision and had doubts he overlooked because he was that desperate. i mean, his desperation comes across in the series in other ways but not in a sad lonely man who is struggling to live without his wife way. the film humanizes this stupid, terrible man in a way the series fails to do so (which makes sense given some of the atrocities he goes onto commit that film gabriel doesn't come close to doing). this softer portrayal works for the movie as many of the things i dislike about m. agreste are never portrayed, leaving him a bit more of a sympathetic villain even as he terrorizes all of paris. he still sucks though, just on a lesser scale.

when gabriel tells the story about how much adrien's mother meant to him, and how difficult it was for him to face the sadness in adrien's eyes upon losing a parent (tbh he's so dumb. his son finds it hard to cope with one parent leaving him so his solution is to make him lose the second parent too just because it was hard to deal with his son's grief on top of his own...dumbass), he says it was only after she was gone that he learned about the miraculous. does this mean that in this universe adrien actually wasn't conceived using the peacock miraculous and the coma emilie is in at the end is caused by something else? gabriel and adrien both speak about his mom like she's dead. and at the end it's revealed that like in the series, emilie is still alive but in a magical coma. did he just mean that they already knew about the peacock miraculous and what he learned about was the butterfly miraculous and then the wish the ladybug and black cat miraculous combined make? i'm lost. (maybe it's just really huge a continuity error?

i saw a lot of people wonder why adrien in the show doesn't argue with his father or blow up at him the way adrien does in the film. aside from the fact that gabriel agreste in the movie is a lot less criminal than the abusive doucheface he is in the series, it doesn't look like adrien is being controlled by his father if he's a sentibeing here too and the worst thing gabriel has done is be an absentee parent (bad, but it's not the locking your kid up, forcing him to work since he was a child, controlling his every second of every day, having your employees follow him around and spy on him for you, trying to control who he interacts with on a daily basis, forbidding him from hanging out with friends, trying to akumatize him or exploit him in other ways, being emotionally abusive, etc etc). adrien in the series being younger, experiencing his father being an ass only since his mother disappeared six months ago and taking nearly a year to realize his treatment isn't normal and he physically can't resist his dad's orders even if he wanted to... they're in such different predicaments. older adrien with less manipulation and abuse would have an easier time yelling at his father. tv adrien also eventually argues with his dad in season 5, but it takes a lot to build up to that and then the series quickly destroys all this character development because of a hole they wrote themselves into, but that's an essay for another time... i don't think these can be fairly compared. (that said, i clapped hard when adrien told his father he lost his dad a long time ago. his father made a decision not to act like a parent once he lost his wife and it's been a long while since then, he's essentially raising himself at this point.)

it's this change in adrien and gabriel's relationship that allows the end of the final battle to make sense in the movie in a way they wouldn't make sense in the show. tv gabriel agreste doesn't care to hurt his son—you see this constantly explored in different timelines. there is a reason why there's so much fanfiction guessing gabriel would exploit adrien if he learned he was chat noir, or actively try to trade him for his wife. movie gabriel, however, stops right away the second he realizes that the teenager he was ready to hurt was actually his son. hell, even earlier, he called adrien to leave the fair before sending akumas there because he didn't want him to get caught in the crossfire. tv gabriel would never. (i guess show gabriel also does this mid-series sometimes but it's so inconsistent...granted show gabriel doesn't know what his son is even doing most days unless he's leaving the city—the one very aware of his schedule is nathalie sooo maybe it's an issue of knowledge. either way, by season 5, gabriel tries to deliberately put his son into harm's way and even akumatize him sooooo....) so that heart to heart they have that helps gabriel deal with his grief and talks him down from being a supervillain any longer is a beautiful moment (the scene itself has the prettiest animation of those two embracing as purified butterflies surround them), but one that the series would not be able to replicate (that character is really not redeemable there even though they kind of tried).

chloe:

to be honest i don't really care for her in any iteration of this, but i did find it interesting that while she said she offered to show him around (as she does in the show too), we never see adrien with chloe in this movie ever. he doesn't talk about her, he doesn't acknowledge her. i always see their friendship as one created by circumstance—when you're kids and your parents' friends only have the one child you're left to interact with so you become "friends" but that friendship isn't anything deep despite it being one of your first. not going to analyze their relationship in the show because while it's not the best friendship some people in fandom fictionalize, it does have some complexity, but in the movie, i'd honestly argue they barely know each other. chloe mentions adrien on multiple occasions. but he doesn't once talk or think about her. he's already friends with nino (is he new in this? chloe said she wants to show him around, but he's already hanging out in a library when we first see him and he already is friends with nino enough for nino to try to invite him out—is it that he's new but this time it's not his first day we're seeing? i don't know, it's unclear), and they make plans to hang out. you see a montage of him hanging out with nino, alya and marinette later, but nothing on chloe. if she wasn't so extremely anxious, i'd wonder why marinette believes chloe at all when she suddenly claims to be the girl adrien likes. i saw some people say chloe in the film is more redeemable than chloe in the series, and while this is true (because of things chloe does to aid a supervillain in seasons 4 and 5 that can't really be undone) i don't see much of a difference in her relationship with marinette. she's not a "rival" (rival suggests a largely harmless competitiveness—marinette isn't competing with her. she's trying to stay out of her way so chloe doesn't hurt her). the degree of bullying is possibly different (we don't really know. movie chloe threatens to strangle marinette with her own hair, so while she's probably not the sole reason marinette has no friends this time, she's still pretty much an actual bully, though a little more aware of being shamed via the internet for her crimes, though not so much at school in front of people... probably because irl people she can control but on the internet, as a politician's daughter as well as a famous hotel heiress, she is bound to face backlash for herself and her family...?) but it's still not great enough to be claiming this character deserves serious spotlight or a redemption arc (honestly she's hardly in the movie). like the series, i get the impression that there is some racism at work here too, but it's not as strong as it is in the show (marinette being this white girl's main target for no reason, her talking to her like she's inhuman, the way the entire school is so quick to dismiss her whenever she's targeted by lila or chloe without ever investigating anything because a white girl cried wolf, and then chloe's actual comments to marinette's uncle, the way she stresses the 'cheng' part of her surname when she's addressing her, etc. etc. the film doesn't do any of this).

there's a scene where chloe is ordering sabrina to locate marinette so she can harass her, and sabrina finds marinette but chooses to lie and pretend she couldn't find her. though sabrina in the series slowly evolves and learns to listen to her own conscience, i like that outside of chloe's line of sight, she knows what's wrong or right. though this is true of series sabrina too, she doesn't act on this sense of morality. i like the change that she does in the film, at least away from chloe. it's the bare minimum but at least it's something.

the music:

it took me a whileeee to care about the music here, but i still find a lot of the music just largely forgettable. (honestly i was hoping for disney classic level music in this animated film, so i guess i have no one to blame but myself there. it doesn't help that i'm obsessed with the actual instrumental music in the series—'in the rain' is one of the most beautiful songs i've ever heard. also i was hoping for ce mur qui nous sépare, but i guess that was a hopeless dream. i was hoping, if they were excluding it, the song wouldn't apply in the movie because there were less "walls between [them]" than in the series, since it was ending in a reveal, but the film doesn't actually go that route... more on that later.) despite the fact that the music wasn't my favorite part, and i really think the movie would improve if there had been a better balance between story development and music (the film really suffers from too much unneeded music in favor of less story development), i did really enjoy some of the songs and the usage of series throwback musical motifs was excellent. also really enjoyed the usage of 'careless whisper' in this movie lmfaoooooo, comedic excellence.

(unpopular opinion: i really didn't mind that lou sings for christina. it doesn't fit well at all, but i heard about it long before i watched the movie and was just expecting it. it's not the best because their voices are so different, but it didn't really take me out like i thought it would, and i got used to it really fast.)

in the first song marinette sings about believing in herself. the visuals are gorgeous. the film brought to life her sketchbook, evolving the mundane to the most elegant of clothes. honestly would love to see and hear more about marinette's passion for design and her dream of becoming a designer. the film barely touched upon it (the show could go into this more too! they do sometimes but i want moreee), but it would be nice to hear where marinette's inspirations come from, why this dream is so meaningful to her. what i found interesting was, in the show marinette exclaims that gabriel agreste is her favorite fashion designer. but movie marinette doesn't mention him ever. does she know about him? is he less influential to her here? she walks by his showroom on her way to school but that's the extent we see of anything in this vein. curious.

though i don't think the 'you are ladybug' song was a necessity (adrien didn't get a song about becoming chat noir, but i guess he didn't need the extra encouragement, since he was ready to go instantly), i did actually enjoy it. lyrically it isn't strong, but it's a fun back and forth between marinette and tikki, and the way the song pays homage to the miraculous ladybug theme song is beautiful (the entire "i have one job / i'm good at it / i've been doing it for so many years" follows the tune to "another day / i'm back at school / i look at him, he's so cool" in the series theme song, and i especially loved "but why me? / i'm nothing special, bug / wait and see / what you're capable of" sung to the melody of "oh oh oh / he's got me spinning 'round / oh oh oh / my feet are off the ground." just TOO GOOD). the rap where tikki channels lin manuel miranda made me die of laughter, but also i really can't get over her going, "we'll come THISCLOSE to dying and then we'll do it all again!" as a selling point to convince this teenager to put her life on the line for all of paris. the other part of this song i really loved was the polyphony at the end when marinette and tikki sang their own melodies at the same time—not just because it sounded nice but because i died over tikki saying, "i'm about to kick your butt if you don't start to listen" lmao.

my entire theater laughed at hawk moth’s song (the song was okay, but the concept of hawk moth singing took me out lmao). it did have the feel of a classic villain song in movies like anastasia or the lion king, but it wasn’t as memorable. i do think it expressed gabriel agreste’s mental state really well though.

reiterating that i really don’t think marinette needed 3.5 different songs about the same theme, but the best song lyrically/musically/vocally is definitely ‘courage in me,’ hands down.

maybe it’s because i adore the fuck out of the music drew ryan scott sings as ’christopher wilde’ in the disney channel movie starstruck, but i love the song chat noir sings after being lovestruck by ladybug after their first meeting (sung by the same man). the visuals of him literally singing with his head in the clouds were excellent, the character song fit him so well, and i think the melody had such a dreamscape feel of falling in love. i actually really like the lyrics in this song too (“it’s been a while since i smiled and meant it” adrichat my bb ;A; ) and my favorite part is “then she appears like a dream in a dream!” i think this song also does what music is meant to do in a musical—add to the story so that part of it can be told in song. so we get adrien basically saying he’s been withdrawing from people for sooo long, and this encounter with ladybug in which he almost died is the first time he’s felt something in a long time. this musical interlude leads to him hanging out with his friend nino at the fair (he said ‘whatever’ when nino first asked him to go, but the difference in his expression and the fact that he seems more smiley and enthusiastic in this encounter, and even hopeful enough to ask his dad to actually come to the fair and hang out with him already demonstrates a change in his demeanor), actually having a conversation with marinette, and then a montage of him no longer choosing to deal with his grief alone and finally reaching out to others, so you can see how that moment with ladybug (and all the other moments of them getting to know each other afterward while fighting or training) really did impact his life.

the miraculous title musical montage around the middle of the movie was too excellent and showed the passage of time really well, both as ladybug and chat noir, and as adrien and marinette. this was a great way to develop parts of the story (it also depicted marinette’s character evolution, making her more self confident in her daily life and no longer being an anxious messy creator of catastrophes). it was also nice to just hear a familiar song. (chat noir smiling goofily to himself after seeing ladybug smile at “and when i see her smile, that’s when she becomes miraculous” is my fave—it's just so well done, i love.)

‘stronger together’ is one of those songs that i love the first half of but find the second half too messy. the sequence is gorgeous, the scene is one of my favorites in terms of relationship development and animation in the entire movie. and i am weirdly in love with the part of the song where it pauses before he sings “take my hand!” and the music picks up. it’s so playful and flirty and the essence of how ladynoir are depicted in this movie, and i love that. the vocals are lovely. there’s a musical motif throwing back to one of my favorite instrumentals in the tv series—'the last dance' which serves as the background of so many touching ladybug and chat noir moments in the show—at the end of the song where she ponders the mixed feelings inside her heart before ultimately rejecting chat noir (“what is this feeling now? i cannot fall for him…” / “we could be great, i know / i’m falling for you.”). as a song, this back and forth dialogue feels so random tacked on here but it is a musical so i guess that fits, i just found the whole thing kind of messy. but i love that they did this dialogue to the melody of ‘the last dance’ because it’s such a gorgeous melody and a sentimental throwback. honestly even if i only like half the song, the scene itself is a film highlight and i fucking cry over the cheesy cute “you save the world every day with your mask, but the girl behind it saved my heart” he says to her that causes her to gasp (same).

film additions that are just better:

the animation, obviously. (THE HAIR TEXTURE! THE SCENERY! THEIR EYES? I CRY I CRY.)

i am fond of the fact that their miraculous lights up (flickers? glows? there's light of some kind) when the city is in need of ladybug or chat noir to save the day, and just kind of guides adrien and marinette to where they need to go. this is a big difference from the series where they have to physically encounter the danger themselves (and they do! because in the show, most of the people akumatized are people they know, random adults in their lives or the kids in their class). and at least one of them has to be present to call the other one to appear. this is not necessary in the universe of the movie. it's also more realistic because hawk moth isn't specifically targeting the kids in his son's class, but is akumatizing people at random all over the city.

i also really loved the fact that tikki and plagg use magic to choose their own chosen holders, rather than master fu doing a random test in the middle of nowhere and hoping to attract people of pure heart out on the street. it helps add to the lore that they're actually chosen, and that they're fated and compatible, and i love that a lot. (there is a scene where he, while trying to chase tikki, ends up in the middle of the street in front of oncoming traffic, and marinette risks her life to save him. but this wasn't used as a means for him to choose her for the ladybug role, but rather as a means for identifying that she was destined to be ladybug and tikki had chosen her. i will add that while i love the concept, the scene itself made me laugh because he sounded crazy interacting with her, no wonder she ended up being scared and running away from him.) the fact that adrien spots a black cat that leads him to the black cat ring and marinette spots a ladybug that guides her to the ladybug earrings... *chef's kiss* i'll confess, i wasn't a fan of every single person they choose throughout history being called ladybug and chat noir (in the series, they choose their own names. ladybug is self explanatory but the fact that adrien's mom used to read him a bedtime story about a hero named chat noir and this resonated with him so much he chose to name himself that immediately upon discovering he has powers means so much to me), but this really wasn't a significant change and i only care because i love adrichat so much.

it was a cool detail in the scene where marinette meets tikki that she awakens like the genie in aladdin (she even calls herself a genie in this one rather than a god. it doesn't matter, but i prefer kwamis being called gods. tikki then goes on to talk about how she can't grant wishes, when we know the black cat and ladybug miraculous can grant a wish in exchange for an equal price which is the entire plot of the movie, but this terminology preference is unimportant). the way she noted all the societal changes and how much time has spent since she's been needed to reawaken was very fun.

in the tv series, gabriel agreste akumatizes himself when he thinks ladybug and chat noir might guess his identity as hawk moth, hoping that if he appeared as a victim they'd be off his trail. while this serves its purpose in the show, i thought it was really cool that film gabriel agreste decided his dark heart would be stronger than the people he's been akumatizing, and instead of continuing to sit back and use innocent civilians for his means, he chooses to akumatize those negative feelings he always carries with him and turn into the ultimate villain himself. and he succeeds, becoming a villain that is so strong, he gets the earrings himself and nearly gets the ring. though i liked that he did this, something about this battle still felt really anticlimactic. it's probably a pacing issue because i really did love that final scene between gabriel and adrien, but everything happened so fast it didn't feel as epic as it seemed they were going for. additionally, i know that the point was ladybug and chat noir are only unbeatable if they work together and they were not at all united this final battle because their feelings got in the way, i was still really troubled that the only reason they won against hawk moth is because he backed off. had chat noir's mask never gotten torn, he would not have stopped...

(i also have to ask, since his identity gets revealed on a large scale and the newscasters even announce that it was him the whole time, does he actually get consequences? like he did back off, but he was still terrorizing the whole city for months... if he's exposed, shouldn't there be ramifications? i can't tell if he went to prison. the movie did not say.)

where the series shines more:

to someone who has never seen the series (i watched this initially with a friend who knew absolutely nothing about mlb), the powers are confusing. in the series, origins explains really well what cataclysm and lucky charm do, how they can only use them once before given five minutes before detransforming and needing to re-transform to use the power again. the series makes use of this, creating tension with the five minute rule (which is explained to only apply to them while they're children, so once they "mature" the time limit will disappear and they'd be able to use their powers over and over without fear of exposing their identities). while the movie does not need to stress over the time limitation (as the film aged up the characters from 13 to 15/16, so i guess they've already hit 'maturity'), it spends no time on explaining what a cataclysm is (a power chat noir doesn't even use until the final battle, and NO EXPLANATION IS GIVEN. WE'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO KNOW HE ALWAYS HAD THIS ABILITY HE NEVER NEEDED TO USE UNTIL HAWK MOTH WAS READY TO KILL HIM) and there are no lucky charms.

actually, the entire battle format makes little sense. in the show, ladybug and chat noir have to figure out what object hawk moth akumatized to turn civilians into his supernatural army, break the akumatized object, free the butterfly, and then purify it. in the movie, all they're really told is that they're meant to fight these beings, and after they win, ladybug can purify the butterfly. there isn't an explanation for when the butterfly leaves the akuma—no objects are being broken; they're literally just fighting until the monster can exist no more. this is strange to me because these fights have no rules. it's just, literally physically defeating a creature until the magic can no longer hold it.

i don't know how i feel about this, but i liked how the series does it. because it's an emphasis on physical strength, the movie lacking lucky charms makes sense, but what i always liked about that was 1) it called back on ladybug being the embodiment of good luck that her power would be chance, and 2) it was specifically marinette's time to shine. her strength in the series is her creativity, her creative approach to problem solving and use of her clever mind is what sets her apart and makes her the best ladybug in the series no matter who else has worn the ladybug miraculous. without this, i felt like a big essence of the character was missing. (the film does call upon her intelligence and creative mind in some scenes, like in the first battle where she uses her yoyo somewhat strategically to stumble her way through traffic and save chat noir, but it wasn't enough for me. i guess it was supposed to be implied that she planned the gargoyle to get hit by the train and the collision released the akuma, but the film is so unclear about this. it looked more like a happy accident rather than marinette using her brain to save the day.)

in the show, ladybug also has the ability to undo akuma damage when she throws her lucky charm into the air and shouts "miraculous ladybug" at the end of each battle. since lucky charms are absent in this iteration, it makes sense this isn't a thing either. (i guess it could also be tedious to show this in the movie after every single attack whereas once an episode is fine, but they could have just shown it once and implied it always happened. instead, what they implied was that after every battle, the damage to the city was actual damage and the city had to deal with the infrastructure hawk moth damaged until after the final battle, when ladybug gave master fu the butterfly miraculous. upon reclamation of that miraculous, fu told her that she, as the holder of the miraculous of creation, could (now, i guess?) use her power to rebuild the city. instead of it being a lucky charm thrown into the air with an incantation that creates a swarm of butterflies spreading over the city for an immediate cure, it's marinette directing her power slowly to every corner of the city and actually creating to undo the damage. this made for a very pretty scene that i really liked, but imagine how awful paris would look if in the series, none of that damage was ever fixed and it would have taken til the end of season 5, ten months after hawk moth started terrorizing the city, for anything to get restored (actually this wouldn't even happe if the show universe worked the same way because they don't reclaim that miraculous at the end of season 5).

so one of my main issues with this film is that a lot of the major themes and didactic messages are just constantly shoved in your face rather than learned by the characters. i think the series—because it has the time—does this better than the film because it allows characters to fail and learn things on their own, rather than having the message delivered in big "life lesson" quotes to the characters all the time that it doesn't at all feel natural. (so the film constantly tells rather than shows.) for example, on her way out of the bakery, marinette randomly asks her mom, "how do you make your dreams come true?" this conversation comes out of nowhere (they were talking about her embarrassment from her dad's antics and her lack of friends right before), and it's followed up with a lesson in believing in herself. it might have made sense had her mom encouraged her to embrace who she is and related that to her reaching out of her comfort zone to consider befriending some of her peers, but that doesn't happen. (it does lead to a song about believing in herself and how if she did so she'd reach her true potential, which is nice, but feels so disjointed from the conversation that happened before it, it was a bit jarring.) when marinette meets master fu on the street, he randomly says to her "who saves a life saves the world" and scares her. but then moments after, she ends up somewhere a ladybug leads her to the same words written on stone. we really didn't need master fu saying this to her when she was going to encounter the message anyway (especially as it comes into play significantly at the end of the movie in the final battle when fu reiterates the quote).

i cringed so hard in that scene after their first fight where master fu appeared out of nowhere just to say “before you discover who i am, you must first discover who you are.” like... okay?

similarly, this is how i felt about the "stronger together" theme. i love that this message is important to the plot—chat noir and ladybug literally are stronger together. but this is constantly being stated rather than the movie trusting the audience to realize it on their own. in the show, ladybug and chat noir work best as partners. their teamwork and trust in each other makes the entire show. here, they work best together also, and their powers even amplify during the moments of teamwork rather than when either of them try to take on a fight alone. i thought this was an interesting change (i love both), but i really like the two of them discovering this on their own through trial and error rather than having master fu mention it to them once and they just spend the entire movie constantly thinking about it.

the one “life lesson” that i thought was more naturally expressed was when chat noir, before being a cute goofball and teasing her, realized ladybug was a little hesitant to accept the mission, and he said, “i understand you’re afraid, but failure is not your enemy—your fears are.” though his delivery was lighthearted, the message stayed with her and she even parrots it back to him later. this is how a film expressing such “life lessons” should do it—through natural progression rather than a bunch of fortune cookie quotes thrown at you over and over again. (though the scene is different, it was reminiscent of the scene in origins when ladybug panics because of how they messed up their first fight, and chat noir reassures and encourages her, inspiring her to continue being a hero despite her being afraid of making more mistakes. this is another example of the film having corresponding but distinctive scenes that i still really enjoyed even though they were different from the series.)

actually, that scene towards the end of the film when tikki reminds marinette that she's ladybug even outside of the mask was really well done too (as well as its reference to the earlier "you save the world every day with your mask, but the girl behind it saved my heart" scene). i loved seeing marinette muster up all the strength she has to try to free chat noir from hawk moth's grip. that one shot of her tackling him out of the way of hawk moth's attack as herself untransformed is so beautifully animated.

overall:

honestly, ignoring all those tweets arguing the movie is better than the series (they're incomparable—there are things the film does better, but overall the development of the series spread out over a hundred episodes is way better than a movie limited under two hours with way too much music), i found that the movie was fun if it wasn't taken seriously. as much as we all hate astruc i don't think it can replace the series even with the things it did better, but i don't think it was meant to (despite what tons of great marketing tweets by fans have claimed). it's just another way to enjoy these characters that mean a lot to us, another iteration of a story we cherish. i do hope the writing improves and the lessons come more naturally in the sequel, but even if it's just a continuation of this i'll eat it up every time (especially now that the movie approaches territory the series has never come close to: marinette and adrien know their feelings for each other and their identities, a fanfiction reader's dream! and maybe they can retcon the adrienette and explore whatever was meant to be conveyed via that montage so that the relationship works on both sides of the mask). i hope anyone familiar with miraculous (and those even curious about it) go and enjoy this film on netflix because it's still a fun ride, and i'm really glad i had the opportunity to experience it at the cinema and laugh and cry all the way through.

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