Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Secret Society of Second-Born Royals’ on Disney+, a Cruddy Blend of Princess and Superhero Movies

Disney+ original movie Secret Society of Second-Born Royals is a demographic wonk’s dream: A princess movie that’s also a superhero movie! Why, you can’t lose! It’s the best of both boy worlds and girl worlds, for teens and tweens of all creeds! It’ll be the hottest thing since the Hatchimal, or Tamagotchis, or maybe even the gol-danged hula hoop itself! I mean, what kid wouldn’t relate to a story about obscenely rich teenagers with no monarchical responsibilities and are therefore free to do as they wish, AND they’re also superheroes? I can’t answer that!

SECRET SOCIETY OF SECOND-BORN ROYALS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: BLACK SHEEP, COMIN’ THROUGH: Sam (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and her BFF Mike (Noah Lomax) are the MISFIT HEMINGWAYS, a two-piece punk-rock-lite band who sets up on the street and sings DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY! until the cops chase them off! But get this! Sam is actually a princess! Irony! She lives in the miniscule country of Illyria with her mother, the queen (Elodie Yung), and older sister Eleanor (Ashley Liao), who’s gonna be crowned queen when she turns 18 even though her mother isn’t dead, so monarchy works differently here I guess! Her father, the king, duh, is dead, but Sam has great memories of him teaching her how to RAWK three chords on the ol’ six-string axe, and in an absolutely convincing manner, and not at all in a way that makes her look like an actress who barely knows how to hold a guitar!

She and Mike go to see her like favorite band but they get carded and can’t get in and they walk by the backstage and she sees a roadie punch in the security code from really far away and then she gets them in but the music is too overstimulating so she pulls the fire alarm! Because she’s a royal and if she can’t enjoy the rock ‘n’ roll NO ONE CAN! What gives, with her very sensitive senses all of a sudden? I don’t know! Hang on! We’ll get to it!

Anyway, Sam goes to high school, but then she doesn’t because it’s summer, but then she has to go to summer school because she’s a delinquent! Sucks! Less time to rock, man! Some of her classmates are princes and princesses too! Of other countries! Maybe they’re named Zzyzyrsztzan or Assumia or Central Eurasiadriatic Republic of Eastern Sussudia! Who knows! They don’t get into that! But they all go to high school in Illyria! Crazy!

The teens have names! And superpowers! What? Yes! All second-born royals are genetically predetermined to be supernormal! Neat! Turns out Sam has super senses! Told you we’d get to it! There’s Tuma (Niles Fitch) who can tell people to do something and they just do it and Roxana (Olivia Deeble) who can turn invisible which is funny because she’s an influencer with 100 million followers and Matteo (Faly Rakotohavana) who can make bugs do his bidding and January (Isabella Blake-Thomas) who can touch people and take their powers! Professor Morrow (Skylar Astin) will whip them into shape and make them worthy of the Secret Society of Second-Born Royals! Training montage? TRAINING MONTAGE!

Meanwhile, a villain known as INMATE 34 (Greg Bryk) has escaped from superpowered villain prison and is planning something! Something for Eleanor’s coronation! Where hundreds of royals are gathered! Oh no! Who will stop him? The Secret Society of Second-Born Royals? No spoilers!!!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is X-Men crossed with Sky High, but minus 200 IQ points and $200 million on the production ledger.

Performance Worth Watching: Bryk’s villain guy types on an invisible keyboard like a madman!

Memorable Dialogue: Professor Morrow informs his students that they’re the Secret Society of Second-Born Royals: “It’s a mouthful. We know.” But then why’d you name the movie that? Silly!

Sex and Skin: None!

Our Take: This movie’s budget is so low, they didn’t bother to give the superheroes cool names like Captain Suggest-o or Bug-Lad or Can’t-See-‘er Girl or Ms. Sense-ible or Thee Leech. Look, I already made the movie more fun. Took me three minutes. I mean, I guess it’s fun enough as is, if you’re entertained by godawful chintzy special effects, overwrought third-act game faces, scintillating dialogue like “DNA-based nano-device programmed to target specific genes. It’s gone!” and how the most serious moment is also the most unintentionally funny moment.

The screenplay is actually credited as a teleplay, which tells us SSSBR is straight-up Disney Channel fodder ported over to Disney+, where it’ll stand as the streamer’s most underachieving original movie to date. That doesn’t mean the teleplay should be this sloppy. Why, exactly, is Sam so anti-monarchy? She says something to her mother about the Illyrian people not being happy, but she stops short of pointing out a specific societal ill, or suggesting policy reform. Not that a Disney movie about super-rich superteens that’s aimed at seven-year-olds needs a policy-reform subplot, but a little bit of specificity in any of it — themes, character traits, visuals — would have helped. The rookie hero team consists of two rebels, one dweeb, one overachiever and one vanity case, all types punched out of the youth-movie book of paper dolls.

As it is, Sam eventually fights a bad guy who seems bent on ruining the privileged lifestyles of royals everywhere, which seems like whoever wrote the third act didn’t bother to read the first. My point may be moot — perhaps Sam eventually realized she’s in a Disney princess movie, and all Disney princess movies feature benevolent monarchies. It’s ultimately not about rebellion or anything interesting, and more about valuing family and the power of teamwork, the same drippy themes in every drippy kids’ movie that ever existed. But notably, hardly any of those movies are this cheap and slapdashed, so at least it stands out.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Secret Society of Second-Born Royals is craptacular. Exile it from the kingdom.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Secret Society of Second-Born Royals on Disney+