Cinnamon the Movie

Show of hands, who here knows about Sanrio? Even if you don't know them by name, you've probably seen a character they made called Hello Kitty. She's pretty much everywhere if you know where to look. But Sanrio as a company has made many other cute, colorful characters since their inception, and continue to do so to this day. I first learned about Sanrio in elementary school, and one of the first Sanrio characters I really grew attached to was Cinnamon, the cute white puppy with long ears and a cinnamon roll shaped tail. I thought he was absolutely adorable, and still do! Yes, I ... know he's technically referred to as Cinnamoroll now, but I remember discovering him back when he was referred to as Baby Cinnamon, or just Cinnamon, so I'm going to keep calling him that. So years later, when I found out there was an anime movie about Cinnamon and his friends, kid me was ecstatic!...until I found out that nobody bothered to give it English subtitles. Fast forward over a decade, and somebody was kind enough to sub it via YouTube's closed captions system and posted it up there. I finally watched it, and...I love Cinnamon, but man, this has kids movie written all over it, and not in a good way.

One day, a pup named Cinnamon falls from the sky, landing in a young girl's bike. Anna, the girl in question, takes Cinnamon to the cafe she works at. Cinnamon meets the other pups that live at the cafe and they all become friends. But a mischievous demon, Chowder, thinks Cinnamon is a threat to Anna, who he has a crush on, so he tries to mess things up by casting magic spells. However, one of them spirals out of control, to the point of kidnapping Anna and trapping her in a warped world of its own making, trapping everyone inside. Cinnamon and the other pups must work together to save Anna from the being that Chowder's spell made sentient.

Not gonna lie, this is not one of the better children's movies. The whole thing just involves the pups going into this magic kingdom to save Anna from a monster, and they don't even really do anything on their own. The pups just scream a lot and the plot basically forces them to move from place to place just to get the story going, rather than actually having them do it themselves. None of the characters receive much in the way of development and are just a bunch of archetypes, and rarely do they do much of anything by themselves. It really says something when Mocha, the female fashionista puppy and a side character, winds up being much more proactive than the lead character, as not only does she frequently call out Chowder for what he did, she's often the first to take action. Plus, the movie doesn't really give the characters a chance to just sit, breathe, and show what they're like outside of the situation they find themselves in. Anna is just a damsel in distress who doesn't do anything but be saved by the pups, so she's flat-out useless.

The story is pretty shallow and trite as well, as it's just a rehash of a "save the female character" premise that's been done in many other movies before, and this does nothing new with it. The main villain is barely given much development, and the themes that arise form said villain's existence don't get explored to their fullest potential. There's also the fact that the movie takes huge leaps in logic just to make the story progress. For example, a character flies to save Anna, but the thing is, the character is small enough that he should not be able to fly carrying the weight of one whole person on them, much less be able to maneuver around moving tentacles. Add in a random Deus Ex Machina that comes out of nowhere to save the day, and the problem is solved forever and ever. Yawn.

It's easy to see that this movie was made solely for the purpose of just entertaining children and giving them something colorful to look at, without much in the way of actual substance and depth. Now, there's nothing wrong with kids wanting the occasional dumb entertainment for the sake of it, as kids can tire of stuff that's solely educational. I like my occasional dose of cheesy Lifetime melodrama movies whenever I'm in the mood for them. But don't go into this movie expecting it to be anything more than a 45-minute babysitter. I can at least say this though: At least it's not the travesties that are My Little Pony: Newborn Cuties and A Troll In Central Park.