Summary
Leaning out the balcony window of its towering streaming service, the siren song goes out to all fans of a delightful 2007 fairy tale comedy musical. Yet much like the characters in the film, happily ever afters are not necessarily found in sequels.
Once upon a time there was a place called Disney. They wanted to make merry with all the people of the land. That was before they took the lands of Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox, when Disney’s banners looked a little different. In a year that included Ratatouille and National Treasure: The Book of Secrets, there was another little bit of unexpected magic in the form of Enchanted.
Fast forward 15 years, and direct-to-Disney+ sequel DISENCHANTED is one of at least half a dozen legacy sequels or remakes dotting the House of Mouse’s annual output. The setup, in which the happily ever after of the original has been tarnished by harsh realities, is an apt analogy for the world that we find ourselves in.
Giselle (Amy Adams), Robert (Patrick Demsey), and Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) still live in Manhattan with new baby Sofia. Finding that the everyday grind has robbed them of the magic of their existence, Giselle convinces the family to move to a gated community called Monroeville. The move doesn’t go to plan.
The house is a shambles, Morgan is miserable, and Robert has a massive schlep to the office. Social activities are ruled over by the local queen bee Malvina (Maya Rudolph). So, when King Edward (James Marseden) and Queen Nancy (Indina Menzel) visit from the animated Andalasia and present them with a wishing wand, Giselle wishes that Monroeville was more like a fairy tale. This goes comically wrong: Malvina becomes an evil queen and Giselle starts turning into a wicked stepmother.
Finances aside, for a sequel to work there needs to be a compelling reason to return to that world. The premise of flipping the script on the original by putting these characters into a magical realm could be intriguing. However, much of the charm of the original was that it already flipped the classic script by injecting magic into a cynical modern NYC. This means that DISENCHANTED now exists in a self-sustaining bubble, a straight fairy tale with magical characters in a fairy tale world. It’s not only less interesting, but kind of misses the point of the first film as well.
Disney+ no doubt threw some money at this, and the lavish sets, dance sequences, and stacked cast are all reflective of this. Yet in other ways, director Adam Shankman (who brought us The Pacifier and Rock of Ages) is a saddled with some poor special effects and lacklustre animation (As with the first film, the animated sequences were outsourced, this time to Canadian animation studio Tonic DNA). To quote Giselle in the film, “It’s a fixer-upper.”
Like Hocus Pocus 2, another legacy sequel released this year, the appeal mostly comes from seeing the original cast again. In Adams, we have a lead who seems to be enjoying the hell out of returning to this character. There’s a scene where she whips back and forth between good and wicked and it’s just sublime. Her duet with Rudolph (“Badder”) is one of the more engaging numbers.
Speaking of singing, the wickedly talented Menzel — who, despite her Broadway chops, famously didn’t sing in the first film — makes up for it in troves with some lung belters. This is the house that Frozen built, after all. James Marsden is sometimes there too. (Seriously, he might be in this even less than X-Men: The Last Stand).
For the time being, DISENCHANTED seems to emblematic of Disney’s output strategy. Take a dash of nostalgia, two parts ready-made franchise, and a sprinkling of familiar cast members. It’s just a shame that in the rush to do so, nobody stopped to think whether they should. Nevertheless, if this sends us all back to the original, then perhaps there still is a little fairy tale magic left after all.
2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Adam Shankman | WRITERS: Brigitte Hales (Story by J. David Stem, David N. Weiss, Richard LaGravenese) | CAST: Amy Adams Patrick Dempsey, Maya Rudolph, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jayma Mays, Gabriella Baldacchino, Idina Menzel, and sometimes James Marsden | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney/Disney+ | RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 18 November 2022 (Disney+)
