A Filmmaker Reviews AG Movies- Felicity: An American Girl Adventure

The whole world is shut down thanks to COVID-19! Even though I'm filming my own movie, there is still too much time on my hands! This means only one thing: it's time to review some old AG movies!

This year, I've learned a lot more about how to make a movie, so I thought it would be fun to revisit the AG movies and see what they did right and wrong in the technical department. Today, we're looking at Felicity: An American Girl Adventure!

WARNING: THIS CONTAINS A LOT OF FILMMAKER RANTING!

What they got RIGHT:

-As usual, the acting was pretty awesome. Shailene Woodley was amazing as Felicity, and here it's clear why she went on to be the most successful former AG actress. But rewatching it as a teenager made me appreciate Geza Kovacs' performance as Jiggy Nye more- despite not playing the most pleasant of characters, he pulled off a convincing performance.

-A problem I had when I rewatched Samantha's movie was that the plot jumped around a lot and skipped a lot of parts. Thankfully, this wasn't the case here. Congratulations, Anna Sandor. You wrote a script that accomplished character development.

-The horse scenes were cool. They were definitely the 'adventure' part of 'Felicity: An American Girl Adventure', and they got the job done.

-AG always does a great job immersing the viewers into the doll's time period, and this movie was no exception. The details were amazing!

What they got WRONG:

-A lot of the time, they tried to shove in historical events by shoehorning it into adult conversation. For example, Felicity's grandfather and Ben talked about the Boston Tea Party at dinner, and the conversation seemed disjointed. I get that the purpose of AG's historical line is to help girls learn history, but I liked it a lot better when they weaved the historical factor into Felicity's world, such as marching soldiers and showing the tea boycott, rather than just talking about it for no certain reason.

-I didn't really like the third act (after Felicity came home from her grandpa's plantation.) The conflicts with Mr. Cole in jail and Felicity's mom being sick all seemed to be resolved very quickly, and it seemed like the movie forgot Felicity was even going to the Christmas Eve ball until two minutes after she came. Even then, I would have ended the movie at the ball because the rest just seemed a bit forced together.

Conclusion: Despite shoving in some details instead of letting them come naturally and a weak third act, Felicity's movie was very enjoyable to watch. It's definitely one of the better American Girl movies.

Old Rating (circa 2016): 9.75

New Rating: 7