Being a teenager isn’t fun. You’re awkward, gawky, your body is going through a whole lot of uncomfortable changes, and you’re constantly worried the person you have a crush on thinks you’re some kind of hideous monster.

It’s a metaphor that’s been literalized onscreen numerous times, including “Teen Wolf” (both the movie and TV shows) and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (both the movie andTV shows). The latest spin at the wheel is DreamWorks Animation’s “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” a film that’s intermittently amusing, but treads familiar territory. Young children will find the assorted undersea visuals diverting, but older kids and grown-ups may not be won over as easily.

Krakens, by way of context, are enormous sea creatures of myth, possessed of enormous, boat-crushing tentacles. Ruby Gillman, by way of context, is a sophomore at Oceanside High School. Charmingly voiced byLana Condor, Ruby may have blue skin, no nose and no internal skeletal system (the Gillmans tell people around town they’re from Canada), but she’s otherwise just your average teen mathlete who wants very much to ask the cute guy she’s tutoring (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White) to the prom.

The wrinkle in this scenario is that the prom is going to take place on a boat, and Ruby’s parents, real-estate agent Agatha (Toni Collette) and blue collar worker Arthur (Colman Domingo) have a firm rule in place to never go near the ocean. Soon enough, despite her parents’ warnings and her own best intentions, Ruby ends up in the ocean and grows to kraken size, including the creature’s token tentacles.

Terrified by her body’s transformation, Ruby descends into the depths and finally learns her hidden history as the granddaughter of kraken queen Grandmamah (voiced byJane Fonda) who expects her to take over the throne one day. Of course, all Ruby wants is to get back to her high school and reclaim her anonymity, but such is not to be.

She also learns another important piece of backstory: Mermaids and krakens donotget along. They’re mortal enemies, in fact. This becomes cause for greater concern when instantly popular new student Chelsea (Annie Murphy) reveals herself to Ruby as a mermaid, wanting to become her new best friend. That Chelsea is conspicuously designed to resemble Disney’s animated Ariel kind of gives away the game, but also feels like a poke in the ribs of the Mouse House by DreamWorks.

“Ruby Gillman” benefits from an impressive voice cast who, unlike what we often get from celebrities doing voiceover work, really came to play. Condor finds the exact right gear of “perpetually panicked teen” for Ruby while still evoking pathos, and Collette and Fonda both bring humor and empathy to their voice performances. Sam Richardson also gets some fun moments as Ruby’s uncle Brill, and Will Forte stands out as Gordon Lighthouse, the kraken-fearing sea captain who has some suspicions about those darn Gillmans.

尽管柯克导演DeMicco和游戏Faryn Pearl to imbue “Ruby Gillman” with some visual flair during the various underwater sequences, it’s an upstream swim to try to distinguish a fairly by-the-numbers story. While the script by Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi has moments of self-referential humor (Brady is a “South Park” veteran, and you can definitely sense that influence), it also can’t help but come across like a re-sorting of elements we’ve seen numerous times already (including Pixar’s “Turning Red” just last year).

On the one hand, you get it. The “puberty turned me into a monster” story has been done so often precisely because it’s relatable, and “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” is at its best when it uses its fantastical premise as texture to illuminate its family dynamics — the relationship between Ruby and her friends; between Ruby and Agatha; between Agatha and her mother. Those are the most compelling elements. But by the time we get to a kaiju-inspired third-act throwdown involving multiple giant sea monsters and a mystical trident, this story feels like it’s gotten too big for its small frame.

Zaki Hasan is a freelance writer.