'Secret Society of Second Born Royals' Review: A paltry tale with an average budget and snobs for superheroes
The year has been a bummer so far and the one consolation was getting to watch some great movies on digital platforms. Some of these films were touted to be "much-anticipated". 'Secret Society of Second Born Royals', mercifully isn't one of them. To be brutally honest, this could have been a much-better movie despite an average budget. Instead what it does is induce repeated yawns within the first 28 minutes.
Surely, the target audience for this film isn't kids beyond 12 and should they be watching any of Marvel's mini-adventures, this flick is plain invisible. There's no doubt Anna Mastro's put in the effort, but it just falls flat.
There are bits and pieces of superhero elements, a social message and some known faces whose talents have been wasted. Credit to the fact that it's original. But that's where the list of pros end as the film navigates the familiar route of finding out that one has superpowers and then patches in a team and a loose plotline while always hoping to stay at par with superhero legends in the business.
'Secret Society of Second Born Royals' is set in a fake country called Illyria (Read Toronto) and Samantha aka Sam (Peyton List) is the grumpy, Imma-be-ho-hum-about kind of teen who's second in line for the crown. She hates it by the way. That royalty is blah is etched all over her face as she's portrayed to be a rebel kid. Her sister Eleanor (Ashley Liao) is due to take the crown in four weeks and their widowed queen mom, played by Elodie Young, is all for it.
Peyton's a rockstar. And she brings that characteristic to the fore by rebelling in the form of playing anti-monarch songs on the streets. It's unbearable. These are times when you wish Disney stuck to what it does best— make great movies. In this case, to just keep a long story really short, a princess story just sees rebellious snobs become superheroes. Then comes the team, the new breed of superheroes, where a kid hates doing pushups. Well, that says it all.
Sam meets these fancy kids at a summer school and it is, in fact, a rather cheaper version of a top-secret training program for these teens who actually have a special gene in them that gives them their abilities. The training center provides the X-Men training facility vibe and they have a gluten-allergic teacher, Morrow (Skylar Astin). Let's ask the most important question: How that be? Now, why would you crib about being a second-born when you actually have superpowers? And what's with the Richie rich's having them? Spare some thought for the rest of the world out there.
It just feels like the 'Secret Society of Second Born Royals' stretches a simple topic to the point it makes no sense. And there's a baddie who takes his own sweet time to announce his badassery to the world. Clearly, Thanos sounded a lot more eager and earnest that way. The cast delivers some impressive performances and surely we haven't seen the last of them in Hollywood. But just about everything else about this movie is unfortunately forgettable.
Come October and Disney has some great content on its roster. If 'Secret Society of Second Born Royals' is their idea of dishing out content for specific age groups, then maybe it's time they go back to the drawing board and figure this out. 'Secret Society of Second Born Royals' releases on September 25 on Disney+.