I am fully aware that this is a movie not made for me - I am long past the days of watching Disney Movies where the message of 'BE TRUE TO YOURSELF' is hammered home ad nausem. This is Harry Potter Lite, and has been done by other movies better and cleaner.
I want to make it clear that in my rating I did my best to separate, for the most part, my feelings from the book. It is clear that Disney threw at least SOME money at this - and it is an okay film. The two lead actresses, and may of the younger cast were actually enjoyable. There is only one big problem that stops me from keeping my rating as a 'cute and fluffy' kids flic in check.
Simply; it is NOT Upside-Down Magic.
If it had been named ANYTHING else - call it 'Magic School', 'Sage Academy', Mag-X or what have you - It'd still be a functioning movie. It would be fine. The problem comes up, as I've seen with the few others who have read the books on here, that there is ALREADY an Upside-Down Magic Series - and while it too has a similar embraceable message of 'be yourself' - it is WAY more complex, and actually gives the same target tween audience a better interpretation than this vanilla aspect.
And as an Upside Down Magic adaptation, it fails on so many levels.
So - I will also admit that I am NOT the target audience for the book series either. But it is a series I have enjoyed reading to my younger cousins and would recommend wholeheartedly to anyone with children to read as a group. The message in those stories are way more complex than 'be yourself' - and is more centered on 'embracing' what you can do rather than conforming - which the movie touches on, but not to the extent of the movie.
"But it's a movie", I here you saying. "Some things are lost in adaptation!"
Well, there's adaptation - and there's a complete nixing of the source material.
In this movie, the only character who I can say for a FACT is even remotely who they are in the books is Nory - which makes sense with a lead actress. But - the strength of the books is not Nory herself - it is her classmates, her teachers, her friends. It's a nice idea to give her a cohort in Raina - but to make her the 'normal' one and her the oddball one just seems...wrong. The books feature a lot of characters, both 'average' magicians and 'UDM people' who feel like living actual people and not walking punchlines, angry teens, or completely unlikable adult characters.
Which is probably my biggest gripe with this story - That the adults featured in this movie are more cartoony than the current ANIMATED Disney Villains. The Principal of the school may as well be a cardboard stereotype for 'mean lady who just doesn't understand that DIFFERENT is OKAY guys' - I'd say she was a Stepford Wife parody if I hadn't already seen it done BETTER in other movies. (Not to mention that if you wanted to get into realism - even magic realism seeing as it's a fantasy - anyone running an institution who treated ANY students with the snide, barely hidden winks of this actress would be out of a job. I mean hell - this woman makes Cruella DeVille look subtle - and that was a literal animated person who wanted to kill puppies!)
Then there's the Kyle - Who, if they had portrayed with even an ounce of the same dignity they gave to the teacher (yes, a fully licensed teacher - NOT a Janitor given a glorified upgrade to take care of the 'weirdo kids') I would not have had. Instead, he remains as a punchline and disagreeable person for almost the entirity of the film - it is the kids themselves who have to teach the ADULT to embrace their strangeness.
The strength of the book's story over the film's is simple. You still have a UDM class, separated from the 'normal' magic-weilders. But there is a larger variety to the students that start off with - more INTERESTING displays of magic. (for those who are curious - they breech topics such as a 'fluxer' like Nory, who is only able to transform into inanimate objects, requiring medical treatment to fix and having him live in fear of turning into something from which he can't recover), a fuzzy who frightens animals instead of makes friends with them, and even some students who's magic isn't quantifiable into one of the five categories at all. The difference with the story(or stories, as there are multiple small-form books) is that instead of the key being 'oh they shoved us all into the reject class in the hopes of 'curing' us or stopping us from being weird - and we as kids have to fight against that and show them that being different is COOL!' They actually show a teacher- multiple teachers, within the school itself, and not just a reject janitor - teaching the kids how to manage their powers, sometimes directing towards a more 'normalized' output, but also to EMBRACE THEIR DIFFERENCES.
I may sound like I'm getting fired up, but the truth is I've looked at this series as a way of talking about disability as much as it is about magic and fantasy and fun. The books themselves talk about the Upside Down Magic program as being as sort of 'alternative' teaching strategy. Teachers and educators who go 'okay, we are not throwing these kids aside because of differences - we are going to help them so they aren't dangerous and maybe can find their way into fitting into our society - both so WE know how to work with them, and they with us'.
The movie itself is fine. But it is about as far from the Message that I'd expect from an Upside-Down Magic Book as to be detrimental. If you want a cute movie to watch with your kids, silly and over the top in only the way a Disney channel can be and about as subtle as a brick to the face with the message of 'BE YOURSELF' - it's just that - Fine.
If you're watching as a fan of the series, Ready to see Nory and the UDM Crew adapted with any sense of decorum or dignity just...save yourself and don't.
At the same time - I sort of hope that there is some sort of sequel to THIS as a story, if only for the young actress who are clearly trying to put their all into it - just...don't try to pass it off as an adaptation that it is in NAME alone.
I want to make it clear that in my rating I did my best to separate, for the most part, my feelings from the book. It is clear that Disney threw at least SOME money at this - and it is an okay film. The two lead actresses, and may of the younger cast were actually enjoyable. There is only one big problem that stops me from keeping my rating as a 'cute and fluffy' kids flic in check.
Simply; it is NOT Upside-Down Magic.
If it had been named ANYTHING else - call it 'Magic School', 'Sage Academy', Mag-X or what have you - It'd still be a functioning movie. It would be fine. The problem comes up, as I've seen with the few others who have read the books on here, that there is ALREADY an Upside-Down Magic Series - and while it too has a similar embraceable message of 'be yourself' - it is WAY more complex, and actually gives the same target tween audience a better interpretation than this vanilla aspect.
And as an Upside Down Magic adaptation, it fails on so many levels.
So - I will also admit that I am NOT the target audience for the book series either. But it is a series I have enjoyed reading to my younger cousins and would recommend wholeheartedly to anyone with children to read as a group. The message in those stories are way more complex than 'be yourself' - and is more centered on 'embracing' what you can do rather than conforming - which the movie touches on, but not to the extent of the movie.
"But it's a movie", I here you saying. "Some things are lost in adaptation!"
Well, there's adaptation - and there's a complete nixing of the source material.
In this movie, the only character who I can say for a FACT is even remotely who they are in the books is Nory - which makes sense with a lead actress. But - the strength of the books is not Nory herself - it is her classmates, her teachers, her friends. It's a nice idea to give her a cohort in Raina - but to make her the 'normal' one and her the oddball one just seems...wrong. The books feature a lot of characters, both 'average' magicians and 'UDM people' who feel like living actual people and not walking punchlines, angry teens, or completely unlikable adult characters.
Which is probably my biggest gripe with this story - That the adults featured in this movie are more cartoony than the current ANIMATED Disney Villains. The Principal of the school may as well be a cardboard stereotype for 'mean lady who just doesn't understand that DIFFERENT is OKAY guys' - I'd say she was a Stepford Wife parody if I hadn't already seen it done BETTER in other movies. (Not to mention that if you wanted to get into realism - even magic realism seeing as it's a fantasy - anyone running an institution who treated ANY students with the snide, barely hidden winks of this actress would be out of a job. I mean hell - this woman makes Cruella DeVille look subtle - and that was a literal animated person who wanted to kill puppies!)
Then there's the Kyle - Who, if they had portrayed with even an ounce of the same dignity they gave to the teacher (yes, a fully licensed teacher - NOT a Janitor given a glorified upgrade to take care of the 'weirdo kids') I would not have had. Instead, he remains as a punchline and disagreeable person for almost the entirity of the film - it is the kids themselves who have to teach the ADULT to embrace their strangeness.
The strength of the book's story over the film's is simple. You still have a UDM class, separated from the 'normal' magic-weilders. But there is a larger variety to the students that start off with - more INTERESTING displays of magic. (for those who are curious - they breech topics such as a 'fluxer' like Nory, who is only able to transform into inanimate objects, requiring medical treatment to fix and having him live in fear of turning into something from which he can't recover), a fuzzy who frightens animals instead of makes friends with them, and even some students who's magic isn't quantifiable into one of the five categories at all. The difference with the story(or stories, as there are multiple small-form books) is that instead of the key being 'oh they shoved us all into the reject class in the hopes of 'curing' us or stopping us from being weird - and we as kids have to fight against that and show them that being different is COOL!' They actually show a teacher- multiple teachers, within the school itself, and not just a reject janitor - teaching the kids how to manage their powers, sometimes directing towards a more 'normalized' output, but also to EMBRACE THEIR DIFFERENCES.
I may sound like I'm getting fired up, but the truth is I've looked at this series as a way of talking about disability as much as it is about magic and fantasy and fun. The books themselves talk about the Upside Down Magic program as being as sort of 'alternative' teaching strategy. Teachers and educators who go 'okay, we are not throwing these kids aside because of differences - we are going to help them so they aren't dangerous and maybe can find their way into fitting into our society - both so WE know how to work with them, and they with us'.
The movie itself is fine. But it is about as far from the Message that I'd expect from an Upside-Down Magic Book as to be detrimental. If you want a cute movie to watch with your kids, silly and over the top in only the way a Disney channel can be and about as subtle as a brick to the face with the message of 'BE YOURSELF' - it's just that - Fine.
If you're watching as a fan of the series, Ready to see Nory and the UDM Crew adapted with any sense of decorum or dignity just...save yourself and don't.
At the same time - I sort of hope that there is some sort of sequel to THIS as a story, if only for the young actress who are clearly trying to put their all into it - just...don't try to pass it off as an adaptation that it is in NAME alone.