Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Ruby Gillman, a sweet and awkward high school student, discovers she's a direct descendant of the warrior kraken queens. The kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids. Destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother, Ruby must use her newfound powers to protect those she loves most.
Ruby Gillman is a competent but formulaic animated coming-of-age story that inverts the mermaid mythos in a mildly clever way but doesn't develop the idea with much originality or depth. The plot hits familiar beats — outsider teen discovers hidden powers, family secrets revealed, climactic battle — without meaningful subversion. The voice cast performs adequately but no performance stands out as exceptional. Visually, the underwater sequences show some creativity and color, though the overall animation style is unremarkable by DreamWorks standards. The villain twist is telegraphed early and the ending resolves too neatly, leaving little emotional resonance. Novelty is constrained by how derivative the overall structure feels despite the kraken-vs-mermaid premise hook.