Review: Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie (2023)
Who is this movie for, exactly? Not me, that’s for sure.
While it would be easy and not too out of place, in this case, to dismiss Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie as hollow children’s entertainment, I did have some hopes for this movie, as I do somewhat enjoy the television series. Mind you, this has never been good enough to recommend outside of the age range it is meant for, unlike The Last Airbender, as the quintessential example. But it has also never been quite as annoying as the opposite quintessence such as Paw Patrol (the movie version of which was competently made, but left me with existential questions). And the fact that it’s French automatically gives it a sheen of mystery and otherness (hon hon!). Unfortunately, Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie is probably the least interesting story ever told in this universe. And there’s, like, three songs too many.
A weird tangent
Slight disclaimer: I have a slightly weird relationship with this series, but this all too serious analysis of what is, at best, mediocre entertainment, is pretty much the only place for me to tell this story, so here goes. Many moons ago, before I ever had children, I regularly trawled an Archive of Our Own (AO3), the web’s best place to read (and write) every kind of fan fiction available. Me, a sucker for written sexiness, found a great many stories there to tickle my fancy, among other things. While I gravitated towards the stories about characters I already knew, the unknown has its own attraction, and so I clicked a story about Ladybug and Cat Noir, knowing nothing about the original series. And it was pretty good! It was stripped of all the superhero stuff and the characters were aged up a decade, but it kept the basic relational premise, where the two main characters know each other in both their normal and their secret lives, without knowing who their alter ego’s are, creating a two person four character love square. How very French. But where the secret lives of the original kids consisted of full body spandex and superheroics, their adult versions were into BDSM and not quite full body spandex.
It would be years before I saw the cartoon for the first time, as my kid chose something colorful on Netflix, and I must admit that that first viewing did give me a bit of whiplash as the different roles I inhabit and generally keep somewhat separated, suddenly came crashing into one another. Now the French are not as sexless as the puritans, obviously, and even though it’s a show aimed at prepubescent teens, I’m not exactly confused as to where the inspiration for the smutty story came from.
Ni chair ni poisson (neither meat nor fish)
Anyway. The movie misses all focus, doesn’t know what story it wants to tell, whether it’s for old fans or new potentials, or even what kind of movie it’s aiming for. There’s not enough action for a superhero movie; there are too many songs to not be a musical, but they’re not interesting enough to market it as such; and the story is both an origin story that starts before the series, as well as a series ending, resolving all the primary relationships. But then at the very end the movie somewhat walks that back, so that nothing really has to change. I was even somewhat curious as to their origins, but there is not a single interesting idea to latch onto.
Had this been my first exposure to Ladybug and Cat Noir (after the sexy story, of course) I would have probably rated this much higher, because it has most of the elements which make these characters work. But as it stands, both the series and the VOD movie ‘Miraculous World: New York — United HeroeZ’ (I’m sorry, that’s what it’s called) are much more interesting (again: if you’re the target audience). What is extra painful is that it is apparently the second most expensive French movie ever made. €80 million, and they made something so bland it could have been American… *sad mime noises*
