‘Your body’s going through changes’ soothes the well-meaning father of this DreamWorks animation’s awkward teenage heroine. Well, that’s one way of putting it. After jumping into the sea to save a boy from drowning, insecure mathlete Ruby (Lana Condor) discovers that she’s a kraken – a huge, tentacled sea beast with bioluminescent skin, laser eyes, and an imposing grandmother (Jane Fonda) who reigns supreme over her underwater queendom.
Turns out Ruby’s mum (Toni Collette) has been hiding her brood on land since her daughter’s childhood to prevent them being sucked into an ‘interspecies vendetta’ with the krakens’ sworn enemies. And who might they be? Why, mermaids of course – ‘selfish, vain narcissists’ (according to granny) who’ll use any ruse to get their hands on a fabled trident that decrees who rules both above and below the waves.
