Disenchanted review: Disney’s Enchanted sequel loses the magic

2007 enchantment It was a cultural reset for Walt Disney Pictures. After years of live-action film absences, the studio has finally leaned into the fairy tale and the sweeping romantic musical that defined the Disney Renaissance. Breaking into song and dance in the middle of the street And the princess who marries the man she met three seconds ago. enchantment was overjoyed, and Giselle was never officially added to the line-up of Disney princesses ( The company would have had to pay Amy Adams It was withdrawn permanently for her animated likeness), enchantment certainly made an impact Future Disney princess sounds.

The sequel has big shoes to fill, especially given how difficult it is to focus on the life after the central couple lives happily ever after. enchantmentThe epic high point of Gisele tying all of Central Park together in an infectiously catchy song-and-dance sequence never seems to match.

When Disillusioned Never do it perfectly. Disney Plus’ new sequel has its fun moments, but it fails to capture the originality and magic of the first film. because But most of the time, the filmmakers never firmly decide whose story this is, shifting the film’s emotional arc to a relationship that is never happy afterward.

[Ed. note: This review contains some setup spoilers for Disenchanted.]

Years after the first film, fairy-tale princess Giselle (Adams, back in character) is a little frustrated with her life in New York City. After the birth of her child, she and her family decided to move to a suburb of Monroeville. Her husband Robert (Patrick Dempsey) is supportive, but her teenage stepdaughter Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) is reeling from the move.

Giselle wants her own life and a fairytale happy family, but she realizes that moving to a new house won’t solve her problems. Her town’s most zealous (and obnoxious) citizen, Malvina (Maya Her Rudolf), feels threatened by Giselle, who accidentally embarrasses Morgan in front of her new classmates. . After her fight with Morgan, Giselle uses her magic wand to wish their lives were like a fairy tale. And hehe! The next morning she wakes up to the sounds of birds chirping, appliances talking, and everyone dressed in medieval fantasy costumes. Monroeville is now a fantastical “Monlorasia”. And no one but Giselle seems to remember her previous life.

Everything looks great until Gisele realizes that a fairytale wish is turning her into an evil stepmother, the villain of Morgan’s story. Each time the clock strikes a new hour, Giselle’s alter ego begins to rule. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeIf she fails to reverse her wish by midnight, she will be stuck as a villain, Morgan’s life will be miserable, and any attempt to mend family ties will be utterly lost. Malvina, who has become a natural evil queen in the town of Edition, intends to steal Giselle’s magic wand for herself.

Photo: Jonathan Hesshon/Disney

Also, when the wish becomes permanent, all magic will be sucked out of Giselle’s homeland of Andalasia, and Giselle and her Andalassian friends will cease to exist. So Robert wanders the streets wielding a sword, searching for his creatures of fantasy to fight. He takes a big back seat in this movie. Here’s more about Gisele agreeing to a relationship with Morgan.

But for films that are inherently tied to mother-daughter relationships, Disillusioned I can’t make it look good. For one, Morgan never really gets to be her own character or share her side of their relationship: she’s unspecified, even though her stepmother was once close. A surly teen who hates her for a reason. It would be one thing if the movie just focused on Gisele trying to rebuild that connection, but Gisele warps into her evil stepmother persona along the way, making Morgan the main character.

From there, the film splits: Morgan tries to find a magical solution in Andalasia, and Giselle tries to usurp Malvina as the story’s big villain. It’s been a while since Disney promised to bring proper old-school song villains to the screen, and both Adams and Rudolph are ready to play their part. Adams in particular does a great job of switching between her sweet and kind princess persona and her scheming stepmother persona.

The villains’ songs are jazzy good times, but all the other songs fall more or less homogeneous. There’s nothing more jarring than Idina Menzel’s big solo when Morgan is in the animated world. For one thing, it’s incredibly generic and corny, and frankly, wastes Menzel’s powerful voice, but the bigger crime is that the animation just doesn’t look good. In Animated Her scenes were on par with the Disney theatrical version.But this time, junky and more like Carrie Underwood scene in music video It came out in the first movie. It’s not just a scene. This is where one of the biggest and most emotional points of Morgan’s arc occurs, with choppy animation ruining what could be a poignant moment about the power of memory.

Photo: Jonathan Hesshon/Disney

But in “Monlorasia,” everything from costumes to set design is captivating. Filtering the usual suburbs through fairy tales creates some awkward moments. A chatty barista becomes a magic mirror, a town festival becomes a ball, naturally. Morgan’s room will be a small hovel at the top of the tower. Because, as her stepdaughter, she is the heroine of the abused and open-minded story. When filmmakers play with these fantasy conventions, especially the superficial elements that make villains villains and heroes heroes, movies become fun.

Unfortunately, when Disillusioned It pivots to Gisele and Morgan’s relationship, but it doesn’t go deep enough to really wrap up the ending. It was focused on deconstructing the conventions of romance with storybooks like , so shifting the focus to the evil stepmother trope and the mother-daughter relationship would be a huge evolution. It’s never explored with the depth it takes to land emotionally. Instead, it’s focused on superficial suburban controversy.

Disillusioned There are some great moments, but they all feel uneven at the surface level. If the story is all about Giselle trying to find her place in this new community and only butting heads with Malvina, then the more superficial side makes sense. The family arc ends in a dud simply because we haven’t seen much of the relationship in action. Eventually, Disillusioned is just an echo of enchantment — the song shines less and has a less intense emotional climax. It’s a splash of magic and recaptures some of the fun of the original film, but the heart of it definitely isn’t enough.

Disillusioned is now available on Disney Plus.