The first Equestria Girls movie was a hit. Naturally a sequel was in order. But the question of whether or not it is any good…. WHO AM I KIDDING? It’s My Little Pony! Either you are on board with the franchise or you’re not, and frankly, if you’re not, then you most likely aren’t reading this.
Fans of the first film will enjoy this return to Canterlot High. The previous visit from Equestria into the human world left a bit of residual magic, resulting in the girls taking on their pony forms when they play music together. Another musical exploration this time around are the new students, who don’t seem to create the same warm feelings with their song. Well, it turns out they were exiled from Equestria for this behavior and now need to be dealt with.
The trappings here are a musical talent show, which leads to a showdown between the stars and the interlopers – you know who is going to win. The fun is in how the plot gets resolved. Add to this a sub-plot about how the rest of the school don’t like Sunset because of her past behavior despite being friends with the rest of the Equestria Girls. Yes, you’re going to have to watch the first movie to fully understand what is going on here, but that’s not too bad, really. The first film was pretty good, and this one matches up to it in quality.
While the whole pony cast from Equestria don’t make an appearance here, the spirit of the television series “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” is still very much here. These movies are an interesting take on the franchise and even play into the sort of fantasy of girls wanting to be like the characters they transform into them, literally taking on their traits as it were.
While it may be predictable, more so than the first movie, Equestria Rocks is still quite enjoyable. Not only that but there are some developments that not only hint at another movie on the way, but leave the possibility for this to become a full-on spin-off franchise.
The Blu-ray comes with the 8 prequel shorts (their word) that are set before the film, and were released online. Prequel suggests they were released afterwards, not before. Prelude would be a much more accurate term. Whatever. The main thing is this has the girls learning they each have the residual magic inside of them to awaken. There is also an audio commentary which I didn’t listen to yet. My daughter sort of refuses to not watch the film itself. Because she wants to watch the film, not listen to a bunch of people talk about the film.