As I settled down late last night, having finished a MacBook Air M3 review and successfully packing up the excellent new 65-inch Sony A95L TV (on my own, somehow), I dug into the best Netflix had to offer this March. But then I got distracted by Netflix's new no.1 movie and its eye-catching long, loud trailer.
Damsel, starring Millie Bobbie Brown (of Stranger Things fame), immediately caught my attention because, well, it looks one heck of a lot like a Game of Thrones spin-off – albeit one I actually want to watch (I've found House of the Dragon tiresome and didn't get halfway through season one). Except, but of course, the two aren't related – don't let the "mother of dragons" language in the Damsel trailer make you think otherwise.
I can't be the only one thinking it though: with Millie Bobbie Brown at the helm, this GoT-alike fairy tale meets horror looks to me like a melting pot of Stranger Things and Game of Thrones rolled into one. You can see why I want to watch it. Except there's a problem: the critics response to the new Netflix film has been dire, netting Damsel just 57% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ultimately the 1 hour and 50 minutes runtime versus my bedtime put me off and I ventured down a Guy Ritchie path and began watching The Gentlemen instead (which is Netflix's new no.1 series this week). Dragons versus posh Essex and Cockney gangsters, eh? Well, that sounds like a whole other movie mash-up. Clearly the best streaming services have such breadth these days that you can go down many a rabbit hole.
Anyway, I'm still not totally switched off to Damsel. After all, Ray Winstone is in the cast. So is the excellent Robin Wright, just with more headgear on than you're likely familiar with seeing (Forrest Gump, Wonder Woman, House of Cards – she's been in the lot). And some reviews of the movie do say it's the great cast that'll carry you through.
With Netflix having raised prices once again in the not-too-distant past, the streaming service is striving to axe numerous shows in the quest for quality over quantity. Damsel doesn't seem to have check-boxed that for all viewers, but with the overall audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sat at an altogether better 72% at the time of writing, this fantasy-horror could sate my 'Stranger of Thrones' appetite, right?
