Desencantada

Roughly a decade after the events of the last film, Giselle (Amy Adams) and Phillip (Patrick Dempsey) along with Phillip's daughter Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) have continued to live as a family including welcoming a new baby, Sophia, into their lives. With their larger family and relative smallness of their apartment, Giselle and Robert decide to move to Monroeville believing the change will be good for them much to the annoyance of Morgan who's now a teenager and dealing with the typical angst with which that entails. Following a fight between Morgan and Giselle, Giselle makes a wish using a wand she received as a present from Edward (James Marsden) and Nancy (Idina Menzel) in Andalasia for her life to be more like a fairy tale which results in Monroeville becoming more magical as a result, but with the price that Giselle is turning into a wicked stepmother.

Disenchanted is of course the long in development sequel to the 2007 hit film Enchanted which is notable for arguably being the breakout film for Amy Adams who received acclaim for her performance as Giselle. Discussions regarding the film were held as far back as 2010 when it was reported Walt Disney Pictures was pursuing active development of a follow-up. What resulted over the years was a recurring trend of information eeking out about the project only for long periods of silence to follow and supposedly this was due to script issues. Varying iterations of the film considered at one point or another before officially being announced in December of 2020. While the movie was developed with plans for a theatrical release, as the film was being finalized in the days of the COVD pandemic both Disney and the producers opted to produce the film for Disney+ as Disney's theatrical efforts were mostly focused on four quadrant tentpoles and legacy franchises. After nearly fifteen years of waiting Disenchanted does capture some of the magic of its predecessor, but it also feels like a reunion piece that's there simply because the cast and crew had fun making the first one.

Disenchanted features the return of most of the major cast and characters from the first film with Amy Adams, Patrick Demspey, James Marsden, and Idina Menzel all reprising their roles quite well feeling slightly more aged, but still very much the same characters we knew in the first film. Gabriella Badlacchino replaces Rachel Covey in the role of Morgan who aged out of the role, and while it's not an especially meaty role as she's mainly just called to be mopey and angsty she does reasonably well in it. Alan Menken also returns to provide the music for the film and while the songs are still good, I think the film maybe gives us a few too many which is endemic to other issues with the film.

Disenchanted runs into an issue with its premise after the setup because once Giselle wishes for her life to be more like a fairy tale, most of the characters stop being themselves and just start acting like fairy tale archetypes with Morgan acting like a standard Cinderella type protagonist and Patrick Dempsey's Robert doing an impression of James Marsden's Edward with the running joke being that while he now "acts" dashing and valiant he's completely out of his depth and this role just isn't suited to Dempsey's talents and only serves to remind you of how much better Marsden was at this schtick and is now relegated to a borderline cameo appearance because the writers can't figure out what to do with him. The reason Enchanted worked was because Giselle's over the top whimsy contrasted with the bustle and cynicism of New York City created a comic culture clash and allowed the fairy tale elements of Edward and Giselle to be funny. With all of Monroville now turned into Monrolasia, we lose that key part of the appeal and Disenchanted loses a massive part of the original film's identity. While some of the costuming and set design remains impressive, you do get a sense of "deja view" feeling you've seen these sets and costumes done before in many of Disney's live-action remakes of their animated properties so yet another part of Enchanted's appeal fails to be captured. The movie also feels more blatant in its referencing of other Disney properties as opposed to Enchanted where it was just generic enough not to be distracting (barring the climax) but when you have them using "Cruella" and "Maleficent" as lyrics in your songs it ceases to feel like affectionate but mocking homage and more like an exercise in brand synergy.

I don't think Disenchanted is bad by any stretch of the imagination and it's perfectly serviceable if you're just looking for easy going viewing or revisiting these characters and performances, but when you compare it to the passion, energy, and novelty we saw in the original film it's a sizable step down. I don't regret seeing it, but I also can't say you should go out of your way to see it so take that for what it's worth.

If Enchanted wasn't going to win any oscar, the movie was original, music was refreshing and the balance between fairytale and humour was holding fine.

In Disenchanted, all breaks apart. The title is exactly what I'd say people might feel after seeing this. Half way through the film, it's clear this movie isn't going anywhere.

The acting is cringe, the music lands blandly on too much plastic landscaping.

There is no even a sense the to whole plot.

There was a potential in the title. It could have been what the first few minutes makes you believe the movie was going to be. Giselle facing the reality of life vs magic. Instead, it forces the audience into live another sad version of a disney fairytale. What a waste.

My main issue with the film is it could've been better, there were some interesting ideas presented rather than just rehashing the original in a dulled down way as most sequels do, the cast were great although writing-wise the character development from the first film had basically vanished and the new characters were somewhat forgettable, still some funny moments but not as memorable as the original, similarly the songs were not as memorable as the original either, lots of abandoned plot threads and characters that had no role in the story but were just kind of there, it feels unfair to compare this to the original since that was over 14 years ago, time flies, but I just think there wasn't really a reason to make a sequel to the first Enchanted

Even so, as far as sequels go it's not the worst, the aforementioned positives stood out for me, the sets were beautiful and costume design was excellent, and I liked some of the ideas the sequel was leading into but the execution just fell flat for me, felt very rushed, sense of scale gone, the animated sequences were almost unnecessary this time as they didn't even involve much movement or expression, and it's a scathing indictment of both Disney's gradual attempts to abandon animation as a medium (despite it being so crucial to their past success) and the conditions animators have to work under, with very little pay or suitable hours, especially compared with the animated sequences of the first film.

All in all it ironically kinda lives up to the Disney tradition of making a memorable, iconic blockbuster film about a princess and then having the direct-to-video sequel being kind of underwhelming, I'd rate this a 6 or a 5 under other circumstances but because I feel like it was close to being a better film and just didn't reach that, and because it doesn't live up to the original, I think 4 is kind of appropriate, Disney needs to pick up their slack, they're becoming too complacent.

I could watch Enchanted any time I want to feel better about the basic goodness of people - and that is what is missing in Disenchated. Apart from James Marsden's dimwitted return as the Prince, and finally letting Menzel sing (albeit a forgettable song amidst a sea of forgettable songs), there's nothing to recommend here. It's a sequel that shouldn't have been made, or at least not by a group of writers, which appears to be the case here. Same cast as Enchanted, Amy Adams actually looks even nicer this time around, but what a godawful story they're stuck with - it's just a mish-mosh of set pieces, each trying to set up the next piece, and failing. As was the case with Hocus Pocus 2, Disney has lost its way.

Was it as good as the original? No, but it was still highly entertaining. I liked that they actually did something new with the story. So many sequels just basically end up doing the same story as the first. And Amy Adams was clearly eating it up as a villain. She was **wicked** fun. Plot wise, I loved the focus on the mother-daughter dynamic, although I could foresee how the spell would be broken from a mile away. And although Patrick Dempsey gets to have a bit more fun by partaking in the singing and dancing I feel like he has a kind of useless B plot. He definitely isn't as important as he was in the first. I thought they did a good job casting with Morgan. I seriously didn't even realize that it wasn't the original actress. A lot of the sets and costumes actually reminded me a lot of the Brandy Cinderella movie. They definitely didn't look cheap and they were full of whimsy but also didn't look fully cinematic either. The songs were very good too. I don't know if they will be as iconic as the original movies, probably not. But still overall good. I think my favourite might be Idina Menzel's memory song. Also just like the first, there's lots of fun Disney Easter eggs to look out for. It was a lot of fun and a pretty good sequel in my eyes.