AutCuddly
Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Jakoba
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
momuse88
I just got done watching this with my daughter. It really is a beautifully animated movie with a strong art direction. The artists clearly did a lot of research into studying how dancers move. I think kids will enjoy it, but if you've been watching movies for any number of years then you have seen this movie hundreds of times already. It's insanely formulaic... the main protagonist grows up in the slums with nothing but a music box and a dream... a string of convenient and preposterous events that take her right to the top, every other character in the movie has little to no character development and are simply there to play the Greek chorus to Felicie's interests and push her along her way. Any time when the writers need to get Felicie from point A to point B they bring it any number of the side characters they have introduced thus far (who apparently have zero life) and magically whisk Felicie away to her destination. There's lots of "Whooooooo"-ing in this film. There's an end sequence I won't spoil her but I'm pretty sure one of the writers said, "It's not necessary to the story, but we haven't used enough kid movie tropes yet so let's make a ridiculous action scene that makes zero sense." I can handle a lot of kid movie stupidity, but my jaw gaped slightly from how over-the-top it is.I also wanted to make a special point to say that the voice acting is really uninspired. There is not attempt at all to bring the audience into the time period or the fact that this takes place in Paris. Imagine your next door neighbor walking up to you and saying, "That suck, bro." And now take that and put it into a movie that takes place during Napoleonic France. To be fair, as a 30 year old man I'm sure I'm not the target audience for this film. If you like dancing, are a kid, don't care about original stories, then I think you'll enjoy this movie.
choclise
Pros/Neutrals:
Nice animation, settings, and it does have a bit of charm to it which I like. Main plot isn't unique in itself of it being a competition, but it's obvious that the movie is not aiming to really be anything more. A lot of other elements were "meh" and just run-of-the-mill things you would expect in a movie with a lower budget than this. Choreography was great to watch (even if it was just animated and not being really danced to). Being a dancer myself this movie appealed to me and has biased my score to be more positive (whoops).Cons:
The main character can be rude and underhanded, and every time she does a high-pitched squeal I had to cover my ears. The dialogue was cringy and unnatural at times. You could pretty much guess the entire plot 20 minutes into the movie. One of the love interests (Rudi) seems to be completely forgotten and we don't get any closure towards the end as to what happened to him; they practise dancing in the same building, and yet we still don't hear anything from him. Victor being the the mandatory farting and bumbling character was overused and got tiring. Some of the soundtrack was jarring, especially when Confident by Demi Lavato came on during a ballet dancing scene. Really, pop songs in a movie about ballet? Maybe if they were somewhat appropriate for their time and/or not too obviously there to just "relate to the kids" it wouldn't be too bad. None of them were really even remotely fitting tone-wise except for some of the lyrics coinciding with the scene.Final thoughts:
It looks as if the word count of the cons would outweigh the pros and I would be giving Ballerina a lower score, but honestly the pros were pretty good. I liked the animation, the models, the environments, the dancing, and it had a bit of charm to it. Watch and groan at times, and be pleasantly surprised in others.
negatively-positive-girl
Just what I expected. The only magic of ballet is captured inside the setting and the theater, everything else is overproduced pop music and tired old clichés. As well as jokes about farts, because that never gets old...
ElliesWonder
A cliché and corny plot collection story that a messing around girl ends up to be a winner. What a terrible leading character! She is a runaway troublemaker, a false identity user, a liar and a thief. She stole the letter from her employer and used others recommendation letter to replace her identity. These are the serious crime. Besides, she is bad mannered, no appreciation to the cleaning lady who taught her dancing skills, and blindly proud of her strength, turned out she failed the audition. No idea why this kind of character will success at the end. This is a bad influence to watch. 2 terrible issues in real life 1)teenage runaway, 2)false id use.