Disclaimer: I am not a "brony." I don't hate bronies, I harbor nothing against them. My thoughts on the show are that it's a fine show. I've seen several episodes, but I've never gotten into the stories or anything. It's just not for me. Also, I am not a professional critic at all, this is all just personal opinion.

So for those of you that don't know, Netflix has added a movie entitled "Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans Of 'My Little Pony'" which is a documentary on, what else, Bronies.

Directed by Laurent Malaquais, "Bronies" tries its best to educate viewers on the fandom that has persisted and established mainstream success. Unfortunately, instead of educating properly (even through cute cutaways performed by a singing John De Lancie pony at "Pony University") "Bronies" instead tends to focus on the stories and families of several different bronies on their way to a couple different Bronycons through what it attempts to be candid interviews.

Overall it establishes that bronies are extremely diverse, varying in nationality, race, artistic skills if any, and of course handicaps (mental or physical) if any. This is an excellent portrayal of the diversity until they start answering questions. Each brony interviewed tends to answer the question why they like the show for the exact same generic reasons, never actually contributing anything about it to themselves. "The animation is gorgeous." "The characters are great." "The stories are well done." "The lessons are useful." Ironically, one brony's mother is the only one to answer the question in a significant way (basically that her son sees a lot of himself in the characters which is way more than anyone else interviewed). This is where repetition sets in.

Various stories and explanations and even reasons for going places are virtually the same. From getting discriminated against and thought of as "gay" or "girly" to not being comfortable with others and welcome into the brony fandom pops up so many times it stops being a unique experience. Diverse interviewees become interchangable character skins.

The film does make use of an all-star cast including John De Lancie, Lauren Faust (the creator of MLP: FiM), various voice actors from the show, and several brony artists and the creator of Brony Con. They all perform well upping the ego of the fandom and portraying it in an incredibly good light; a little too good.

Another major reason the film falls flat is its exclusion of anything controversial. They make mention of the pony porn, but only for a couple seconds and calling it by its brony name, "clop", which many non-bronies would not follow as pornography. Or even the allaged (I honestly have no idea if this is true, but I've heard it from several sources) BroNYCon Orgy. Now I am not saying the film had to be all about the porn, but I feel as if it should have included more of an explanation and exploration as to the sexual side of the fandom, as it is rather a large part of the internet part of the fandom, instead of just mentioning it as a joke and quickly passing it by. Or at least have used something else controversial.

Overall, "Bronies" exists for one reason only: to boost the ego of the fandom and increase its household awareness. Instead of providing deep insight and education into the fandom, the film bypasses all of that with repetitive people and stories that only serve to paint the fandom in the best light possible while still claiming to be misunderstood.

My overall down-to-the-wire thoughts?
-Skip it. Don't even bother with curiosity. It is nearly nothing but boring pander meant to further its identity without anything substantial to say.

Let's hope there are better documentaries coming out soon.