Hilda and the Lost Ring

"The life of an adventurer will have the adventure of a lifetime."

- Tagline

Hilda and the Lost Ring (also known as Hilda: The Lost Ring in some international releases) is a 2022 2D-animated fantasy adventure comedy-drama film based on the Netflix animated series of the same name. The film was directed by Andy Coyle and was produced by Sony Pictures Animation, alongside Silvergate Media and Mercury Filmworks, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film, considered non-canon by the producers, follows 11-year-old girl Hilda who, after stumbling upon a ring of great destruction, has to team up with her friends to stop the upcoming catastrophe from happening, escalating from traveling across the world, to even entering an extraterrestrial world.

Hilda and the Lost Ring premiered at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on May 18, 2022, and released in theatres in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on May 20, 2022. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics, praising its dynamic animation, voice acting, soundtrack, and faithfulness to the novels and series, but mildly criticising its plot and script.

Synopsis
"The life of an adventurer for 11-year-old girl Hilda is not easy, where she is stuck with a ring containing what seems to be a warning of the future. While having that, she will need to team with her friends and alongside new ones to solve this problem. The only problem is, there are pros and cons to the ring."

-Sony Pictures

Plot
In Trolberg, Scandinavia, Hilda (Bella Ramsey), an 11-year-old blue-haired girl, prepares to start her adventure around the city with her friends Frida (Ammerah Falzon-Ojo) and David (Oliver Nelson). But first, she will need to retrieve a stolen item from a ghost in the woods. Things went smoothly, until a piece of the ground breaks off, trapping Hilda and Twig in the hole. With no way out, Hilda, however, encounters a ring containing supernatural power from an ancient spirit (Keith David). Curious at what it is, the ring somehow gets stuck on her arm, later realizing that it contains the vision of the future. Alfur (Rasmus Hardiker) warns Hilda about the extremely deadly consequences of the ring.

Desperate to seek answers, the group enters a shop owned by Alex (John Hasler). Even though he is not aware about what the ring is and what it can do, he is willing to help them out. While looking around, Hilda spots an old book containing information of the book, and explaining that it was a civilized project, while looking for clues. Though to make matters worse, Hilda's mum Johanna (Daisy Haggard) is furious to keeping the ring a secret, so as to prevent any distress.

The next morning, Alex invites Hilda, Frida, David, Twig, and Alfur to a journey on finding a solution to their problem. Their first clue to their problem is to go to a ruin deep inside the mountains, where they will need to look for a piece of a diamond to assist them, while their next clue is to head outside of Trolberg, which meant going to atleast two other cities, though Alex chooses to stay behind to help out with Johanna. However, as they head to their second city, an unknown entity tranquilizes Hilda, putting her into a deep sleep. The entity takes her body into a portal, leading to a different realm.

Waking up from her deep sleep, Hilda finds herself in a realm known as the "Spirit Realm" or "Alterworld", inside Luke (Anna Akana)'s cabin. Luke tells Hilda that they are in an alternate realm, and that the reason she is there was because of Hugh (Rowan Atkinson) finding out that a human being (Hilda) had one of their treasures, and that he sent Ryan (Troy Baker) to get her. Hilda tries to prove this wrong by telling her that it was from the human realm, and that she needs to get back. Duncan (David Tennant) doubts it himself, and challenges Hilda to a bet, where if she wins, she will return to the human realm. But if she loses, she will stay in the Spirit Realm permanently. She attempts this herself, but unfortunately, loses first try. Hugh attempts to take care of her to keep her alive during her stay. As she wakes up, Hilda realizes that she has put all the lives of the people in her world at risk, and that it is all her fault. The spirit in the ring begins to control a part of her mind, but she snaps out of it a moment later. While Luke is investigating to what happened in her body, as well as the ring, Ryan tries to help out Hilda into getting back to her home realm, despite what he did to her.

TBA.

Voice Cast

 * Bella Ramsey as Hilda
 * Ammerah Falzon-Ojo as Frida
 * Oliver Nelson as David
 * Rasmus Hardiker as Alfur
 * John Hasler as Alex
 * Keith David as the spirit in the Ring
 * Daisy Haggard as Johanna
 * Anna Akana as Luke
 * David Tennant as Duncan
 * Stephanie Beatriz as Marley
 * Rowan Atkinson as Hugh
 * Mark Rylance as Reginald
 * Kaisa Hammarlund as Kaisa
 * Ako Mitchell as Wood Man
 * Troy Baker as Ryan
 * Teresa Gallagher as Newscaster #1
 * Paul Reubens as Newscaster #2
 * Additional voices:
 * Fred Tatasciore
 * Frank Welker
 * Joseph May
 * Rob Rackstraw
 * Stefan-Ashton Frank
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * David Schneider
 * Simon Greenall

Development
Plans for a theatrical Hilda film have surfaced since early 2019. Series creator Luke Pearson had pitched to Sony Pictures Animation an early script of the film, and was accepted. The film had suffered three different script changes, with the third being used as the final script. Despite advantages to the film, there were a couple of financing problems, even to the point where the film had almost gotten canceled. Fortunately, New Heights Capital stepped in and gave around $60 million dollars for the film's budget.

In October 2019, the film was announced at New York Comic Con. The scheduled release date at the time was in early to mid 2022. However, in December 2019, Sony had acquired Silvergate Media for $195 million, removing the film from the release schedule.

Writing
The script of the movie was co-written by series writers Luke Pearson and Stephanie Simpson, with Alex Hirsch also writing.

Animation
Animation was done at Mercury Filmworks, using the Sony Pictures Imageworks engine, keeping the animation look in 2D animation with adding some new 3D elements. Additional animation was also done at Atomic Cartoons, but they were uncredited.

Music
The score of the film was done by composer Ryan Carlson, who also worked on the series. Alan Menken also composed the score.

Soundtrack
In March 2022, a soundtrack album of the film was released via Columbia Records. The album contains songs played in-film from many artists, such as The Who, Electric Light Orchestra, and Soft Cell. The album also contains an original song performed for the film by American indie artist Greta Kline (also known as Frankie Cosmos).

Release
Before its reveal in October 2019, the film was promoted via an international alternate-reality game (ARG) titled Thereisnoanswer.org. In this ARG, fans who attended this promotion were to solve the meaning of the film's plot device.

Hilda and the Lost Ring was delayed two times. Its original release date was April 15, 2022, but was removed from the schedule when Sony acquired Silvergate Media. On June 29, 2020, its new release date was February 25, 2022, but was also removed in November of the same year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, on July 1, 2021, the third and final release was confirmed to be May 20, 2022.

Home media
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on digital on July 5, 2022. It was later released on both DVD and Blu-Ray on August 2, 2022. The Blu-Ray contains behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes, and a short film released exclusively for the Blu-Ray titled Troll Trouble. It also contains a CD of the soundtrack album.

Box office
Hilda and the Lost Ring released alongside Men and Downtown Abbey: A New Era. It received $27 million on its first opening weekend in the US and Canada, and continued to gross up to $105 million.

In the United Kingdom, it grossed $31 million USD in its opening weekend as well, making the US, Canada, and UK box-office opening weekend results $58 million. It continued to soar up to $128 million USD. In other territories, it grossed $224 million, making it a box-office success.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 70% based on 178 reviews, with an approval rating of 6.22/10. The critical consensus reads, “As the life of an adventurer risks herself on this dangerous mission, Hilda and the Lost Ring proves this as not only the adventure of a lifetime, but also the most perfect animated international adventure flick.” On Metacritic, it surveyed 35 reviews with a metascore of 60 out of 100, indicating “mixed or average reviews”, while on CinemaScore, audiences polled an “A” on an “A+ to F” scale.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Warren Lorens gave the film a 9/10, writing: “As an 11-year-old girl to trolls and spirits, Hilda proves herself to be the supernatural girl she’s always been, but this film takes it a step further, where she not only travels to two other real-world cities, but also enter a whole new world. Hilda and the Lost Ring is a must-see for kids, especially if you have those who love nature.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave the film a 4 out of 5 stars, writing: “One of the most perfect 2D-animated adventure films, Hilda and the Lost Ring’s high-tech 3D-like animation dominates this film’s good side. The soundtrack is another important factor here, showing off its 80s style music. In other words, Hilda and the Lost Ring will make you have a futuristic folk-like feeling.”

Ian Freer of Empire gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, stating “While it is a lengthy-filled action pack adventure, Hilda unfortunately flops herself into this animation film, unlike many other cartoon characters. However, that doesn’t mean that she can’t be saved from this one. Her heroic actions and quick thinking skills are what this movie needs for an 11-year-old. As compared to Sony Pictures Animation’s other movies like The Smurfs and The Emoji Movie, Hilda and the Lost Ring proves itself to be a much, much better film than the latter combined.”

Possible sequel
At the premiere of Hilda and the Lost Ring at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on May 18, Luke Pearson confirmed that Sony Pictures Animation and Silvergate Media are already working on a draft script to a sequel of the film. He said that it will have something to do with even more fantastic creatures around the North American and European continent, such as the Griffin and the Jersey Devil, as well as also having a time-loop related element.