The movie is set in Illyria, an imaginary country that is the smallest nation in Europe, but its residents apparently all sound like Americans. It’s ruled by royalty led by Queen Catherine (Elodie Yung), who has two daughters, Eleanor (Ashley Liao), who is next in line to take the throne, and Sam (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), who finds the whole idea of being a princess boring and pointless (as predicted, some of the commoners do too). Rengifo said, “Sam spends her days with friend Mike (Noah Lomax) trying to find gigs for their two-person band, while also grappling with heightened senses that let her hear and perceive almost everything around her. They even perform anti-monarchist jams in public.” However, with Eleanor’s coronation approaching, Sam is sent to a special class that appears to be detention. Turns out, this is to be a special team led by Professor James Morrow, played by Skylar Astin, who trains “second-born royals” who have superpowers. Joining Sam are Tuma (Niles Fitch), who has the ability to talk people into doing anything, January (Isabella Blake-Thomas), who can absorb others powers with a simple touch, Roxana (Olivia Deeble), born with the power to become invisible, and Matteo (Faly Rakotohavana), who has the ability to control insects. As their training begins, a threat comes (unavoidably). Inmate 34, played by Greg Bryk, has escaped from an Illyrian prison and is determined to ruin the coronation.
Rengifo said, ““Secret Society of Second-Born Royals” functions as an attempt at setting up a small-scale franchise to justify your monthly Disney Plus subscription fee. However, director Anna Mastro and Disney deserve credit for keeping the cast diverse. Even when it’s throwaway entertainment, at least the company is making sure to add progressive touches.” The superhero team of the title has no one dominating ethnicity, and even Professor James Morrow cleverly identifies as gay when he introduces himself. If young Disney audiences are expected to be simply distracted by movies like this, at least they’ll get a bit of inclusivity included.
However, returning to the movie itself, there’s not much to discuss about “Secret Society.” Rengifo is right when he says, “It follows a teen movie beat sheet.” Sam is a rebellious royal with superpowers and most of the movie is spent watching her and the team training, which means dodging lasers in a simulation room, learning archery and messing around with their different powers. Except for poor Matteo, who is already socially awkward and feels left out because his power is him guiding butterflies. Rengifo noted, “One can sense writers Andrew Green and Alex Litvak going down the list of superpowers that haven’t been overkilled yet. Roxana and January are the only ones with abilities that could land them a spot with the X-Men. Sam’s abilities sound like what makes Dr. Dre such a great music producer and Tuma would make a great salesman or politician with his power.”
Illyria also feels like a completely boring kingdom. We never look around the streets or capitol. Sam has a part singing a protest song in public, but there’s barely anyone around. Are Illyrians happy with their monarchy? Rengifo asked, “Does Illyria have a secret police like Iran’s Savak under the Shah?” When Eleanor talks about her future, she claims about wanting to give Illyrians the choice of having a parliament alongside the monarchy, you know, like England or Spain. Do Illyrians even want that? We wouldn’t know because the movie never goes outside of Professor Morrow’s training academy. There’s never a feeling that the Secret Society really helps the people because their only real threat is Inmate 34. Later, they get called to try and stop a jewel theft, so it’s not like they go to the streets to protect the peasants from crime. Kings and Queens are popular right now, especially after the huge success of “Black Panther.” However, that was a large action comic book adaptation with style and intelligence, with a villain challenging Wakanda to live up to its faiths and go on world revolution. The royals in this movie could be any bored teens who get to do something fun. On top of that, why do only second-born royals get powers and how? There could have been humor to this entire idea, we even get a look at it when Same goes around a weapons room with portraits of other warrior royals, and above a big gun is a picture of Prince Henry.
“Secret Society of Second-Born Royals” starts and ends quickly. It’s a fast hour and 36 minutes of good young actors doing an exercise of simple movie business. What we get is just a story with no larger goal than to give a chuckle or two. Rengifo ended his review by saying, “In the end, it’s a game of thrones with few royal payoffs.”
I’m sorry guys, but this film was a giant disappointment. What looked like was going to be an interesting teen superhero royalty film ended up being a huge mess. I would suggest you avoid this movie at all cost because there is nothing worth watching in this. You just want this to end so that you can get on with your life because this one flat out sucked. If you have kids, they can probably get into this just fine, but for adults, they will really hate this one.
Thank you for joining in on “Disney Month 2021.” I hope all of you enjoyed this month and have a blessed end of the year. Like last year, this year ended up being very easy for me since I didn’t do a lot of reviews. As I previously stated, with the current pandemic, it might be that way for a while, but we’ll see what the future holds.
In the meantime, I’m going to take a well-needed week vacation. I’ll see you guys next year when I start back up with my normal Friday reviews.
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