To be very straight forward, this is a good movie, but in a The Dark Knight Rises or Star Trek: The Search for Spock kind of way, in that, like those films, it never really had so much as a prayer in meeting, let alone exceeding the high standards that its predecessor surprisingly made, and it has some considerable flaws. But at the end of the day, it still succeeds where many threequels don't in being a good, fun, enjoyable movie.
The main highlight of this movie both good and bad ways is the characters. The Human Five, while didn't appear to have much of a purpose in the film (at least it felt that way to me), were still the characters in their human form just as we love them. But the real focus is on Sunset Shimmer and human Twilight Sparkle, because this was really their story more than anyone else. I personally really liked how they made human Twilight her own character. She had the same basic personality and traits as the real Twilight to be sure, but they did a good job at showing that this is a completely separate person from the lavender pony we've come to know and love for the past five years. And then we have Sunset Shimmer who has gained much more development with her character, such as how she is still learning about friendship, yet sort of still in secure about the choices she makes and learning to help people by herself rather than gain help from Twilight. In fact there is a whole subplot that was deleted from the film about her considering whether out not she should move back into Equestria. And you know what? It's great. I mean I can understand why they deleted it in how they have a limited running time for the film and it probably is something to more than likely wait until the next film. (Yes, that's already been confirmed.) But man, so many people, myself included, would've loved to see it make the film, or at the very least be able to watch the deleted scenes in animation rather through storyboards in the bonus features for the film. But with that all said, the new characters could've had more development. We have a whole group of new characters from Crystal Prep, and yet all I remember about them is their one-noted personalities. You have one character who is bipolar, you have one that is very blunt, you have one that is basically diet Vinyl Scratch who can talk (lucky brat), a diet Rainbow Dash, and on and so forth. I've seen the film three times already and yet the only name I remember from among them is Sugar Coat, who is the name of the blunt talking character. If that's the only name I know from a whole group of characters, that's not a good sign. Also I want to point out how Flash Sentry has even less attention than before. In fact there seemed to be something of a subplot about him and the human Twilight, but they only met two times and that's it. Maybe the creators are trying to please the people who hate him by having human Twilight ignore him, but regardless, I would still like more from him.
But if there's one thing that the film failed big time in terms of characters, it would be the villain: Principal Cinch. Of all the villains in MLP, she is by far the weakest... well let me elaborate on that actually. It's true that as much as people like me are crazy about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, there are some villains in the past that aren't the most complex by any means. But what makes them better than Principle Cinch is how despite being underdeveloped characters, they still are interesting. Call it their magical abilities, their background/lack thereof, whatever personalities they do have in the show or a mixture of any or all of these elements, but either way, there is something about them that fascinates us and inspires us to express our own interpretations about who these characters are and what they might be like if they had further development. It's things like this that inspire people to make various sorts of fan art (myself included seeing as I did become a fan artist recently), whether through drawings, paintings, comics, fan fiction, fan music, etc. With Principal Cinch on the other hand, I guess you could argue that she can be interesting enough over how far she's willing to go to achieve her goal, but even then, her goal is all about keeping a reputation in her school. And let's face it, as far as evil plots go, that's a good number of steps behind something like taking over Equestria or gaining power to gain unlimited admiration.
The music is a lot of fun to listen to. It's not as strong as the soundtrack in the last film, but that's hardly fair to say seeing as the last film was all about music, giving Daniel Ingram so much space to go all out. But regardless, we still get some great, memorable music that we've come to expect from the guy. My personal favorites are My Past is not Today, There's More That's Out There and Acedeca. While My Past is Not Today is technically a Rainbow Rocks song that's was in a short a few months after that film came out, I'm counting it because it's also in the soundtrack to this film. And honestly, why wouldn't I want to talk about it? It's basically Sunset Shimmer's own song about how she's moving on from her past, and I can hardly get enough of it. There's More That's Out There I really enjoy because it's a nice, deep song about human Twilight expressing how she's feeling about her life. And Acadeca? Pff. Acedeca is just fricking catchy. If there's one song I didn't care for, or at the very least had to grow on me in order to like it okay, it would have to be Principle Cinch's villain song; Unleash the Magic. Don't get me wrong, in terms of what she's doing with the help of her students is great, and how Twilight joins in during the end of the song is even better. But there is just something about the tune that kept throwing me off the first couple of times I listened to it.
Finally, the climax was smart. There were some lines that I personally would've liked to have changed, but the event itself was clever. It was basically a 180 of the climax from the first film, but the roles reversed between Twilight and Sunset Shimmer. Plus the costumes for the supernatural forms of some of the characters where much, much better than Sunset Shimmer's design as a she-demon.
And that's my review for My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Friendship Games. It takes some steps back in terms of giving us the villain and other new characters, but it is also meet with great development for Sunset Shimmer, a likable, human Twilight Sparkle, an enjoyable soundtrack, and an all around entertaining third movie. It's not the strongest, but it certainly succeeds in being a better film than the first one by far.
Rating: 70%
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