Why must kids’ films be so unremittingly bleak?

By Nicholas Barber

I can’t say I was looking forward to seeing “My Little Pony: The Movie” last weekend – I’m not insane, after all – but it didn’t seem too bad a prospect, either. My four-year-old daughter was so excited that she brought her cuddly Rainbow Dash toy to the cinema, and she’d even changed into a vaguely rainbow-ish dress to help us get into the “My Little Pony” spirit. I knew I wasn’t about to see an Oscar contender, but at least I’d see my daughter smiling for 90 minutes. And, if I was lucky, I could fit in a nap.

Reader, it was not to be. The cartoon was OK at first. Obviously, it was also a grating, garish, nonsensical extended commercial for a loathsomely twee Hasbro toy range, but I could hardly complain about that. As Princess Twilight Sparkle and her saucer-eyed pony pals trotted around the magical kingdom of Equestria, I had to admit that we were getting what I’d paid for. The trouble started when a toxic storm cloud gathered in the sky above Equestria. Some kind of alien mothership disgorged a hate-filled unicorn with a broken horn. A horde of hulking gorilla-zombie enforcers followed. The Little Ponies whinnied in terror. My daughter had much the same reaction. Not to worry, I reassured her. Things would look up for Twilight Sparkle at any moment. Let’s face it, a film called “My Little Pony: The Movie” couldn’t maintain this level of doom and gloom for long, could it? Apparently it could.