The Academy of Magic – Film Review

Aura is gifted with magical abilities; she and her friends have many exciting adventures at the academy, but soon Aura learns that the school hatches many dark secrets that she must uncover. Will she be able to unveil the truth?

Wait a minute… do you mean to tell me that the lead character in Jorgen Klubien and Cindy Robinson‘s The Academy of Magic isn’t Anna from the Frozen franchise? The character of Aura (voiced by Laura Megan Stahl) certainly looks scarily similar to the popular Disney character, and it’s not the only time that Academy of Magic draws too much inspiration from an already-existing franchise such as Harry Potter.

Perhaps this movie will be entertaining to literal toddlers, but any child over the age of four is going to find this to be an extremely boring snooze fest where not a whole lot happens, and when things finally do start to happen, they’re all incredibly mundane and unexciting.

People always argue that children’s films often can’t be these crazy big movies where a ton of stuff happens, but I have to strongly disagree. Coraline is one of the most popular children’s films of all time because it’s a film that is remarkably well-told, excellently directed, and it’s thrilling at the same time.

This movie? Not so much. The script by Klubien and Robinson is a thing of beauty… if it were opposite day. It’s an extremely watered-down science-fiction fantasy-style script that borrows way too much from the aforementioned Harry Potter films without ever embracing its own identity. This feels like all the worst qualities of those Walmart bargain bin movies combined into one colossal nightmare that you can’t wake from.

Also, what’s up with the incredibly lazy, outdated animation here? I’ve seen student animation shorts in high school that were better animated than this feature that was made by a professional studio. Obviously, a good story is the most important part of any movie, but in an animated movie, having a great sense of style is kind of important. The animation style here is utterly terrible in every way. And to top it off, as mentioned earlier, the story sucks.

If you want to watch an impressively bad animated film, then you might as well check this one out. But if you’re like me and you want to watch good quality entertainment, you should steer clear of this film at all costs.

The Academy of Magic is a painstakingly bad animated film that looks and feels incredibly cheap while also brandishing a weak script that feels way too predictable and formulaic.