My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Friendship Games (2015)

*Sigh*. Okay, look Hasbro, we need to talk about why you keep putting money into making these piles of garbage instead of more 'Transformers' movies.This is downright the worst part of the 'My Little Pony' franchise that has ever crawled out of hell. Twilight is poisoning Sunset Shimmer, who is the only person in this godforsaken franchise I can tolerate, with her 'Friendship is the most powerful magic of all' crap. What about The American Revolution? Does she think that King George was just gonna hand the colonies over to us? No! We had to kick his butt! Apparently, Twilight hasn't seen 'Darkest Hour'. Speaking of Twilight, why are there two now!? Wasn't one enough? Also, if there's a human version of Twilight, doesn't that mean there's a human Sunset Shimmer as well? The things they don't think of.There's a saying that 'A story is only as good as it's villains'. And since there villain is the annoying, woman-of-business version of Haytham Kenway from AC III, and her name happens to be 'Cinch', well, that's your story gone right out the window. That woman is the worst villain I have ever seen in an animation. Does she also have a Native American-Assassin son named 'Connor'? If she wanted to study magic, she should've just gone to Kamar-Taj instead of her 'manipulate-a-student-who-happens-to-have-a-pony-counterpart-who-is-friends-with-the-main-characters-and-has-a-magic-stealing-necklace' plan. That was destined to fail.Also...The Friendship Games?! What the hell does this have to do with friendship?! Its two rival schools who managed to create a less deadly version of The Hunger Games! I get these idiots like to lay it on thick with the friendship, but come on! Even Disney doesn't do this! 'IT' had a better friendship story than this villainy! The actual games don't even come until the last 15 freaking minutes! They should've called this 'My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Human Twilight's Magic Hunt of Evil"! At least 'The Hunger Games' improved by time it ended. These are just getting worse! And they're still making more-you know what, I give up with these crap-piles.

I've never exactly been a fan of the Equestria Girls movie series, but I've always given them a fair chance to see what they have to offer. Despite the flaws from the first two movies, there were things I enjoyed from both of those films. Whether it was the villains, some of the songs, or the interactions between Sunset and Twilight, the first two movies did have some good things in it. This movie though? I can't say the same at all.Taking place after the events of Rainbow Rocks, the human world's Twilight Sparkle, who was seen at the end of the last movie, is going around investigating the strange readings around Canterlot High. Meanwhile, the main focus is supposed to be about how Canterlot High is getting ready to face their rivals, Crystal Prep Academy, in the Friendship Games. Sunset is tasked with keeping the magic under control while the games are going on.Notice how I used to the word "supposed" in regards to the Friendship Games. Don't be fooled by the so called title of the movie. Despite it being about the Friendship Games, they barely play a part in the movie at all. That's the least of this movie's problems though.The real title of this movie should've been "Twilight's Magical Hunt." All that happens for most of the movie is Twilight going around Canterlot High and stealing magic in some device she made. A lot of the scenes in this movie can be described as the following: Twilight meets one of the Humane 5, interacts with them for a little bit, one of the girls ponies up, Twilight's device steals magic from the girl, and then a small scene with Sunset talking about the magic or the Friendship Games. There is so little going on in this movie that it gets very boring very fast.As I mentioned earlier, the Friendship Games hardly play a part in this movie at all. They talk about the games and all, but we hardly ever see them at all in this movie. You want to know how long it takes before we finally get to what is supposed to be the focus of the movie? One hour.You have to wait a full 60 minutes, in a 90 minute movie mind you, before the Friendship Games are ever shown. What's even more insulting though is that these Friendship Games are only around for 15 minutes before they are dropped from the movie completely. So out of the 90 minutes, the games are only around for 15 minutes. That's not even a fifth of the movie! The songs themselves are also pretty lousy. Many of them are just forgettable and aren't that interesting at all. The only one I liked was the final song about unleashing the magic. The rest of the songs though are just bland and not memorable. Even the first movie had a better soundtrack than this.The villains are just lame. Principal Cinch has to be one of the most note villains ever. She's not the least bit memorable. The Shadowbolts, while slightly better, are disappointing. While they are polar opposites of the Humane 5, and the intro title made it look like the two groups would face off against each other, they barely do anything in the movie themselves. The only Shadowbolt I liked was Sugarcoat, and that was because her bluntness was hilarious.Then there's the final conflict with Midnight Sparkle. When Twilight gets engulfed in magic, it turns her evil. Why is she evil? Because the movie said so. I know the old saying is power corrupts, but there's no buildup to Twilight turning evil. It would've worked out better if Twilight showed resentment for the way the rest of the school treated her. Here, she's just evil for evil's sake.Speaking of final conflict, this battle basically rehashes the climax from the first movie. Seriously, it's almost played out the same way. It's the same setting, same characters involved, and even Midnight Sparkle reminds me too much of Demon Sunset. I guess you could say this was meant to be an homage and some sort of test for Sunset as she went through this before, but this is a cheap cop out for a final battle. And the way it all ends is head scratching. All that happens is Spike, who can now talk thanks to magic, distracting Twilight, Sunset overpowers her, and convinces her to stop. Talk about an anti-climax of an ending.There are really only a few minor things that I did take from this movie. One, the romance subplot with Flash and Twilight is ignored completely. Two, at least pony Twilight didn't return in the movie until the end. But those aren't enough to help this mess of a film.Friendship Games is an overall mess, and arguably worst than the first movie. While the first film was bad, it at least had a three act structure to it, and some character development. This movie is a total mess and a complete bore. Aside from Sunset Shimmer and Human Twilight, nobody gets any screen time to develop their characters or anything. The story is all over the place with no focus, and it rehashes elements from the first movie. The villains are either lame or disappointing. The songs are bland. The writing is weak and the jokes aren't that good.I can't recommend this movie to anyone unless they are a die hard Equestria Girls fan. Otherwise, I would suggest staying far away from this mess of a movie. And I do mean stay far away from it.

This review contains some spoilersI think this movie was creepy in a terrifying manner. It is a MLP version of Milgram experiment on Twilight, a perfectly good and well intended person cracking under peer pressure and doing things against her personal moral code. Also the outburst of Sunset Shimmer toward Twilight was something. Typical frustration nonthinking outburst (we all do from time to time) doing irreparable damage to a weaken confused and depressed mind. This movie is very dark in all significant places regardless of its shiny and colorful presentation. This movie for me have left other 2 in the dust. Well done HASBRO.

My initial review of this film might've been a little harsh.. I think I was just a little off put by the short length of it. But... after rewatching it, my opinion has changed. This is probably the best movie of the Equestria Girls series, if only because it establishes its own identity and doesn't rely heavily on the the "Friendship is Magic" show. I like FiM a lot more, but this EqG series does have heart and its own soul. Which, to add on to that, I love how while these human characters are still the counterparts of ponies in Equestria, they still have their own individual personalities.. they're similar but definitely not the same.. their own souls and spirits, etc. The music is good, which is the norm for a DHX/Vancouver / Hasbro production. The animation is on par with Rainbow Rocks. The acting is on par with the show and the direction from Rudell is great... he does a fantastic job. So I'd love to see a fourth film in the EqG series. If a fourth film was on par or better than these films, I'm sure it'd be a fine film... hopefully they'll try to finally break past the 72 minute mark. I think they need a little more time to flesh these stories and characters out.Nice job MLP staff. Keep on doing your thing.