Channel Awesome
Register
Advertisement

(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

Doug (vo): Well, I'll give this to Secret Society of Second-Born Royals. It made me realize something I never quite put together until now. When Disney does a story involving royalty, particularly a prince or a princess, if it's animated, it's probably gonna be good. (Posters of Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog, and Frozen are shown) If it's not animated, though, it's probably gonna suck balls. (Posters of The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Princess Protection Program are shown) Literally, the opening line shows how much Disney doesn't understand their own property. It starts off with a narrator saying, "You know that story about a princess who's saved by a prince? This isn't that kind of story." Oh, yeah, we're not doing that cliched genre, we're doing about five or six other cliched genres! In fact, even mocking this cliched genre is already becoming a cliched genre! (The poster for Enchanted is shown, shortly followed by a clip from Ralph Breaks the Internet) Disney itself mocked how overused this is!

Rapunzel: (to Vanellope) Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up?

Vanellope: Yes! What is up with that?

Doug (vo): But don't worry, Disney fans. We're not doing that this time...oh, let's just jump into this shit.

Story[]

Doug (vo): The story centers around Princess Sam. Her sister is soon to become queen of...honestly, I don't even remember if they say, and it doesn't really matter, because Sam hates the matriarchy and constantly tries to protest against her. Oh, did I say "protest"? I mean, start a rock band! Yeah! This is one part-Lemonade Mouth. When both her sister and mother say, "Stop trying to sabotage us, you little brat, and do something with your life", she discovers at her school, filled with other princes and princesses because...of course it is, that she has special powers. In fact, any second-born of royal blood just happens to have super-abilities. Yeah, it's not evolution like X-Men. It's not even some radioactive shit like in every other comic book-type thing. It just...kinda exists. It exists because high-schoolers and superpowers are a thing, so why not high-schoolers, superpowers, and royalty...oh, and, you know, rock bands? Not enough check marks on our popularity list? Well, let's see what else we got. Sam doesn't want to be a princess...yeah, that's a new twist. But when she discovers the power of friendship, she finds out more and more about the importance of listening. In fact, she discovers that her sister actually doesn't want to be as much of a matriarchy anymore as much as...open things up to parliament so the people have a say. Aw! All Sam had to do was listen. Yeah, you know what else would've helped? If her sister fucking said that! Seriously, like, half this movie is them fighting, and the sister had to say one thing, and...there wouldn't be any more fighting! The evil bad guy that escapes out of jail and wants revenge and...here's another twist you haven't heard...has a connection to one of the main characters. But screw that. We gotta rock out with our best friend that used to be our worst enemy!

Review[]

Doug (vo): This movie tries to combine every past popular Disney Channel movie into one, which is ironic, because those movies were already trying to combine a bunch of popular Disney Channel properties as well. You name it. This is Descendants, Princess Protection Program, Lemonade Mouth, Camp Rock. And a strange part of me could almost see it working if it had any, any sense of satire. If it just had even the tiniest understanding of humor, and it doesn't, man. And when it does, like when Sam's best friend has to be told what's going on and she says in one incredible run-on sentence the absurdity of this plot, the best friend doesn't even give that big a reaction, because that would be funny and make sense. And I don't know if that's allowed in live-action Disney anymore. Even the properties they're ripping off, they can't steal that well from, like in the end, they're told that they have a jet. Ooh! A jet for the Secret Society to fly around in! Aren't you thinking of, like, the X-Men jet or the Batplane, something like that? No! It's just a private jet! How fucking boring is that? There's not even a little logo on it or little missiles or anything! It's just a frigging private plane! Who gives a shit? They can't even capture the cool elements of the cool things they're taking from.

(Various clips focusing on the film's characters are shown)

Doug (vo; sighs): All right, all right. So is there anything good in this movie? Uh..."good's" not the word. Let's say...passable. The acting, for the most part, is passable. There's occasional exceptions with their narrator/mentor/teacher, who sometimes will just say lines like they're meant to be in a trailer, and Sam herself sometimes, especially near the end, will say these exposition-y lines that are said so bad, I kind of thought the idea was, like, she was being recorded and she was gonna play it back for everyone to hear, you know, purposefully acting bad and...no, no. It's just the real performance. But a lot of these actors are young, and, honestly, I can see them going on to better stuff. And they're not really given material that can sound very natural. Everything is just so over-explained and not personal or realistic, it just doesn't sound like how real people would talk. So the fact that there was any charm from any of these actors, I think is quite an accomplishment.

Final thought[]

Doug (vo): But, no. This is bad. Really, really bad. At least in some of the bad Disney Channel movies like Lemonade Mouth, I could kind of laugh at how absurd it was, or, you know, Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2, they're just so stupid, I gotta laugh. And maybe that's because I do see some possibilities in this, you know, with the actors and the production design, and, yeah, none of it's great, but-but it's confident. I mean, you can tell a lot of money went into this...for the most part. There's a scene where a bunch of butterflies save Sam, and it's...it's hideous, but I never got anyone on this movie wasn't trying, except for, you know, the writers, who probably had a day to turn this script in, because Disney's just like, "Hey, these things are still popular." This is just the most shallow of shallow. If they're not saying exposition, they're saying lessons. And if they're not saying lessons, they're saying buzzwords. And if they're not saying buzzwords, they're referencing something that's popular at the moment. In fact, just call it that, "The Secret Society of References". If I haven't made myself clear, skip this piece of shit.

(A quick montage of clips that end with the film's final scene of the Secret Society walking towards their private jet are shown)

Advertisement