My Little Pony
Director: Jayson Thiessen
Voice cast: Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball, Andrea Libman, Tabitha St. Germain, Cathy Weseluck, Emily Blunt, Liev Schreiber, Michael Peña
Story line: Princess Twilight Sparkle has to save Equestria from the evil machinations of the Storm King
Another movie based on Hasbro toys, My Little Pony thankfully is not as noisy as the Transformers movies. Directed by Jayson Thiessen, with a story and screenplay co-written by Meghan McCarthy, My Little Pony builds on the highly-successful television series Friendship is Magic . Thiessen directed the show as well as spin-offs while McCarthy was the showrunner for the second season.
The film starts with the first friendship festival at Equestria, which Princess Twilight Sparkle is organising, comes Tempest Shadow to throw a spanner in the works with a big fat storm. The unhappy, broken horned unicorn works for Storm King who wants to use the unicorns’ magic to control the weather and be the king of the world or some such. Twilight and her friends Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy have to find the queen of the hippogriffs to save Equestria.
After many colourful adventures, characters and songs, everything is sorted out. The ponies are cute with flashing eyes and floating hair — parents beware. The sidekicks — Tempest’s smart aleck, lisping hedgehog, Grubber, Twilight’s twee baby dragon, Celaeno, the parrot pirate and the alley cat are expectedly sweet and salty.
Apart from series regulars, Emily Blunt (Tempest), Liev Schreiber (Storm King), Michael Peña (Grubber) and Zoe Saldana (Celaeno) join the voice cast. The songs are fizzy pop, the animation comforting, the adventures mildly thrilling and the moral of ‘friends forever’ vanilla. Now all the little girls and boys can pester parents for the colourful ponies and everyone can go home happy.
