Il était une fois 2

In the new movie, "Disenchanted," the bulk of the actors and crew members from the earlier film are back. Everyone who is reprising their roles does an excellent job of ageing the characters while keeping them recognisably the same people they were in the previous film.

Giselle's over-the-top whimsy and the bustle and cynicism of New York City provided for a hilarious and effective cultural clash in the film Enchanted, which contributed to the film's popularity. Compared to the previous film, Disenchanted is missing a significant chunk of its personality due to the fact that Monroville has been transformed into Monrolasia. However, knowing that you've seen them done before in many of Disney's live-action remakes of its animation titles gives you a sense of déjà vu and changes the film from an appreciative but satirical tribute to more of a brand synergy exercise.

Disenchanted isn't horrible, and it serves its purpose if you're looking for light entertainment or want to see these actors and actresses again, but it's no match for the passion, energy, and freshness of the first movie in the series. Taking everything into consideration, I do not have any second thoughts about having seen it, but I also would not advise someone to go out of their way to do so.

If it wasn't for the nostalgia I'd given this a 4.

Is a pity, because all the ingredients are there; great actors, a solid pitch, a massive budget...but no filling, only crust.

The concept of the plot is great; a magical wish goes wrong as it means fairy tale logic is applied to real people and our former heroine Giselle is turning to a villain! Will the almost grown Morgan be able to reach past her grumpy teen persona and find her faith in fairy tales again? Great pitch!

Only that it's not what the movie is about.

There's no gradient turn of the people, no slow realization for neither Giselle or Morgan. Everything is explained as it happens, the logic of magic made up as it shows, or at least that's what it feels like as they present the answer to a problem exactly one second after it's occurred and then take three whole minutes to actually carry out what ever they just figured out before the next one shows up.

There is no generational change; Giselle is still the heroine although she's also the villain (?) and Morgan and Robert simply become completely other characters instead of gradually turning into their fairy tale persona. Missed opportunity.

I'd have loved for this to be Morgan's and Giselles story. Have Morgan rediscover her love for magic and imagination and faith in "happily ever after" by finding her self as the heroine she didn't think she was - all while Giselle yet again find her way back to what made her want to leave her former life of imagined paths for an open world that may be full of strife and conflict, but where love and overcoming those conflicts tastes all the sweeter for it.

This was not that. This was a mess of musical numbers "for the sake of it", special effects because they can do them and focus on Amy Adam's, because she's the star.

Disappointing. But not unexpected.

Disenchanted delivers a cliche story that loses the charm of the first film. It manages to siphon out everything that made Enchanted great, whilst adding a forgettable villain into the mix, and numerous plot holes, that had me scratching my head at times. Performances were as good as they could be with the lackluster script, and the climax of the film came off as shallow and underwhelming. This movie is just another Disney reboot and I wouldn't recommend watching it.

Best part of the film was James marsdens character, he's just the only funny person in the whole movie, and it looks like James is having a lot of fun playing him

5/10.

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.

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.