Review: 'Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken' has gorgeous animation and a puny story to go with it

DreamWorks’ new animated tale, the skimpy but colorful “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” is another example of a genre whose technical expertise has outpaced its storytelling abilities.

Ruby, voiced by Lana Condor (from the “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” movies), wants to be a typical teen hiding in plain sight in her high school in Oceanside. It’s not easy to do when you, and your family, are kraken, “the monsters of the sea.” Ruby’s parents, Agatha (voiced by Toni Collette) and Arthur (voiced by Colman Domingo) moved onto land when Ruby and her brother Sam (voiced by Blue Chapman) were little — and Ruby is under strict orders never to go to the ocean.

Ruby’s high school life involves hanging with her friends, and pining for Connor (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White), the skater boy to whom she’s teaching math. Connor’s the reason Ruby wants to go to prom, something Agatha won’t allow because prom is on a cruise boat on the ocean. 

One day, while trying to arrange a prom-posal, Ruby accidentally knocks Connor into the water — and when she goes in to save him, she discovers the sea water gives her powers, and makes her gigantic. This is the talent of the female kraken in her family, something Agatha has kept from Ruby since babyhood. Ruby also learns that she has a grandmother (voiced by Jane Fonda), who’s the warrior queen of the kraken, and eager to train Ruby to defend the oceans and eventually inherit the throne.

It’s Grandmamah who tells Ruby that the kraken have been in a generations-long war with the evil mermaids – and that the humans have the roles switched, thinking mermaids are friendly and kraken are monsters. But when Ruby finds out that her school’s popular new girl, Chelsea (voiced by Annie Murphy, from “Schitt’s Creek”), is a mermaid who wants to be Ruby’s friend, Ruby’s not sure who to believe.

Director Kirk DeMicco, who helmed “The Croods” and “Vivo,” and co-director Faryn Pearl (a story artist on “The Croods: A New Age” and “Trolls World Tour”) create a rich, colorful palette, both of Oceanside’s bustling human population and the ocean wonders Ruby encounters as her learns of her family’s history.

If only the story could match the visuals. The script — credited to “South Park” veteran Pam Brady and the team of Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi (who co-wrote “Lucy in the Sky”) — is a by-the-numbers coming-of-age story that, like Pixar’s “Turning Red” before it, equates female puberty to transformation into a giant creature. It’s a sturdy foundation for an animated movie, but the story needs more meat on the bones to truly engage the audience. 

——

‘Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, June 30, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some action, rude humor and thematic elements. Running time: 91 minutes.