'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' is in my opinion one of the best animated shows in recent years. The first film based on it 'Equestria Girls' was an enormous disappointment and the complete anti-thesis in quality as one could get. Was apprehensive about watching its first sequel 'Rainbow Rocks' but was both pleasantly surprised and very impressed. 'Friendship Games' was flawed but still decent.
Likewise with the third sequel and fourth overall instalment 'Legend of Everfree'. It's not as good as 'Rainbow Rocks' and nowhere near as good as 'Friendship is Magic', but it is a huge improvement over the first 'Equestria Girls' film. It is hard to say which is better between 'Friendship Games', there are a couple of the same problems while things are done better than the other and others done worse than the other. It was such a good surprise to find sequels vastly better than the original film, considering the general reputation with sequels (with obvious exceptions of course), but the 'Equestria Girls' films, while still not perfect films, manages this feat.
There are issues with 'Legend of Everfree'. It does suffer still, like 'Friendship Games' from trying to do too much with a few too many characters and plot strands, but whereas 'Friendship Games' suffered quite majorly in this respect it's only at times with 'Legend of Everfree'.
Other problems exist, with the most forgettable song scores of the sequels. Don't remember many of them at all, and didn't feel they were particularly good in their own right, certainly better than the soundtrack in the first film but very meh still. It also has the weakest script of the sequels too. Not awful, there are good qualities in it, but it does have some clunky and unnecessary exposition, cheesiness and repetition which wasn't present in the previous two sequels.
Much more could have been done with the magical powers stuff. An interesting angle with the powers appropriately fitting to each character, but not given enough screen time and done with not much imagination.
However, there are many good qualities in 'Legend of Everfree'. The animation is vibrant, ethereal and well-rounded, like 'Friendship is Magic', 'Rainbow Rocks' and 'Friendship Games' and unlike 'Equestria Girls', with character designs that are appealing and don't send warning signs about potential bad messaging.
While the script is flawed, there is a good balance of humour and emotion, with winning and amusing humour and poignant and never schmaltzy or mawkish emotion. The references are clever and naturally integrated and the messages are well-meaning and heartfelt and avoid being preachy.
Story here has its messy moments but still moves along nicely and it doesn't feel like an extended TV episode. It was great to see that the romantic subplots were much better handled than in 'Rainbow Rocks' (one of the very few problems with that film), especially the main one. The characters, though Flash is still a bit bland, are better developed as an overall whole than in 'Friendship Games', have believably done conflicts and flaws and are well-realised and easy to like. Twilight and Sunset Shimmer are particularly well done.
Voice acting is very strong, no talent wastes here. Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball and Rachel Shoichet are particularly good.
Overall, just as decent third sequel but could have been better. 7/10 Bethany Cox
