The story takes place in a fairy world, where fairies who want to become Pretty Cure partners go to school and learn about Pretty Cure. One fairy, Grell, isn't too fond of the Pretty Cure and likes to cause trouble. Another fairy, Enen, is very fond of them but is too shy to do anything. When Grell comes across a crystal in a forbidden dungeon, it becomes sentient and he and the shadow start doing bad things, even going as far as to trick the Pretty Cure into coming to the fairy world so the shadow can encase them in ice and grow strong. Grell even goes as far as to rope Enen into his plot. But once he realizes what he's done, he decides to try and fix it with Enen's help. But can they do it?
The animation is pretty much the same as New Stage 1. Not particularly noteworthy, but fluid during the action scenes, and it does its job for the most part. The music has a lot more rock and heavy metal tunes than usual, which is quite odd for a children's movie, not that I particularly mind. At least the music adds to the movie's atmosphere and tension, so I have no problem with it. The Pretty Cure girls don't really get much in the way of development, and again, others are just there to move the plot forward to the point of not having lines, which is both a waste of animation and detrimental to the movie's quality. If you're not going to give characters' lines or a reason to be in the movie, then don't include them at all. But I liked the new fairies and the development they got, cliche and questionable as it is.
And by questionable...well, I have one big issue with this movie, and I'm honestly surprised nobody's talking about it. There's a scene where Enen and Grell try to cross a cliff, but Grell falls and Enen tries to save him. At this point, Enen confesses that he considers Grell a friend because he took time to talk with him. But the thing is? There's absolutely NO reason for Enen to consider Grell a friend, especially when all Grell has done is bully him, verbally abuse him, berate his interest in Pretty Cure, and worst of all, rope him into a plot where the shadow encases the Smile girls in ice and making him take the fall for it, even though Grell does regret doing this later on. Does anyone else here notice how questionable this is? Is the movie trying to teach kids that the best way to make friends is if they're nothing but mean and abusive and have to use you for their own ends? That's not how friendship works! I've made friends through finding mutual interests, understanding, and open communication. Grell and Enen NEVER do ANY of this throughout the movie, so I find their whole friendship thing to be really fake and superficial, which makes the whole thing a MASSIVE broken aesop. It really says something when the first New Stage movie portrayed friendship better than this movie did, and I'm surprised Ayumi is getting a lot of backlash and hate when Grell is the one more deserving of it for the way he treats everyone, Enen included! At least Ayumi didn't behave like a b****, but people care too much about her taking up screentime to really bother with the facts. Even if Grell did get better toward the end, none of it justifies his actions, and the fact that everyone forgives him in the end makes the whole thing even more cringeworthy! I know he develops and gets past his flaws, but I can't forgive his treatment of Enen. Characters like Korra from Legend of Korra and Garrod from Gundam X had similar problems in which their actions resulted in repercussions, but at least they didn't do any of it out of malice and weren't outright abusive to their friends, and they actually had time to befriend people and get to know them better before running into problems along the way! I just feel Grell and Enen's friendship could have been executed a lot better. But I do love Enen! He's adorable! I want a plushie of him!
Phew! Finally got that elephant out of the room. So yeah, the aesop and its execution are the only things I felt were bad about this movie, along with Grell's previous abusive treatment of Enen. If you want a flashy movie with Precure fighting, then check it out. But give it a miss if you want something with better executed stories.
