Brief Story Line
Sam (Payton Elizabeth Lee - Andi Mack TV series etc) was the second-born royal in the kingdom of Illrya where she was quite rebellious with the monarch tradition and often having disagreements with her mother, Queen Catherine (Elodie Yung - The Hitman's Bodyguard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation etc) and her older sister/future queen Eleanor (Ashley Liao - Fuller House TV series etc). With her childhood best friend Mike (Noah Lomax), Sam sometimes did things against the regulation.
As punishment for her latest act, Sam was instructed to go to summer school where she met with other royals from different countries like January (Isabella Blake-Thomas), Roxana (Olivia Deeble), Tuma (Niles Fitch - This is Us TV series etc) and Matteo (Faly Rakotohavana). To their surprise, apparently the summer school was a front for training all second-born royals who have super powers to be part of group that protect the world. Their trainer was professor James (Skylar Astin - Pitch Perfect 1 & 2 etc).
Meanwhile a really powerful villain called Inmate 34 (Greg Byrk - Code 8 etc) managed to escape from prison with his own agenda. So what would happen to Sam and friends? Find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well this was as much as what you could expect in a Disney movie seemingly aimed for children. After watching this, I could not help think it has an After School Special sense and it also has a strong TV movie feel. Like it was the pilot of a series. Probably because of its light nature. As a movie that has a bit of superhero element, I actually felt this one had a really slow build up. They really took their own sweet time to get to the interesting part. Yes there was hint a bit here and there but still it could be made faster.
The story was not too complicated with a neat surprising twist which I should have seen coming a mile away but probably I was distracted a bit and only realize once it was going to be revealed. The young actors and actresses did their job adequately, although personally for me the main cast Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Niles Fitch probably stood out better than the rest. The adult cast were generally fine and Greg Bryk in particular fit his role perfectly as villain once again. One thing that I love about the cast was mostly they talk in different accents, making strong foreign sense (they were supposed to be royals from various countries, so good job by the casting department).
There was quite a number of songs played in here with one of them titled The Pressure was sung by Peyton herself. It truly made the movie felt youthful. The special effects here were OK though not too spectacular. There few action scenes which were pretty standard for superhero movie. The plot was quite predictable, even from the moment they were in summer school, we already knew what would happen in the end. The duration of 99 minutes was just nice as any longer would make it too boring. There was no mid or post end credit scenes at all here.
Overall, this was a mediocre youth superhero movie as it focused more on the young second-born royals struggle in their life which actually had nothing to do with their super powers anyway. It might be different if their super powers got in their way of their life struggle. The drama was average and nothing in particular that truly impressed me. The TV movie feel was very strong, throwing me back to my adolescent years of watching TV way before streaming services were available. So if you are looking for quality Disney movies, this one was not a really good option. However, if you just want to watch a bunch of teenagers trying out their super powers, then you could give this a try. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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