Like always, I went in without watching any trailers or any knowledge about the source material.
In the beginning, the movie starts with the same vibe as other generic fantasy movies out there. As you progress into the story, you feel that the movie is a try-hard Harry Potter like. You're not wrong. It is. It's Harry Potter if there were only 2 houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin. Gryffindor (Good) has all the good qualities and quite obviously Slytherin (Evil) is all bad things possible.
For 70% of the movie, things remain pretty black and white. This is really infuriating for me because I hate such movies. Hunger Games, Divergent, depict an unnatural society where humans are so easily divided based on some function or trait. Harry Potter does the same as well. This movie repeats it too. Except here, and this is after 70% of the movie, the movie shows a tiny bit of uniqueness in the form of Agatha. I love that her character is exactly like the voice of the people watching this movie. The voice of reason. She goes around pointing almost all the same things I pointed that it's Not. As. Easy. As. That. Yes, I know other movies do that too but in those movies the protagonist is supported by a mentor character who shows them "the truth". Here, it's all Agatha. It's just her common sense. There's no Dumbledore here who comes and tells her the grand plan. In a way, Agatha feels like us. If we got into a school like that, we would act exactly like that! Like seriously, you're giving me an F for not smiling good?? I love her character.
That's the thing that I like the most about this movie. The rest of movie after this is also interesting because it tries to break from the pattern. In the form of Agatha of course. I felt the self-writing book was also a very nice plot and some very interesting story lines can emerge from that alone.
The movie should target the right audience for this to get good results. It isn't a movie for most adults. Maybe the next part would be better?
