Disenchanted

 

Disenchanted

Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, Gabrielle Baldacchino, Maya Rudolph

Directed by Adam Shankman

Back in 2007, Disney released "Enchanted" and it was a modest success, raising Amy Adams's name to a bigger status as she went on to bigger and better things. The story centered around Giselle, a typical Disney-like fairytale character living in the lush, colorful, animated world of Andalasia who finds her way to real-life New York City and adapts to this new world, falling in love with her happily ever after, and seemingly tying everything together in a magical bow. Of course, it being Disney, they have to find a way to milk any original IP as dry as the Sahara, but no one expected a sequel from "Enchanted" especially as the years went on and Adams received several Academy Award nominations for her stellar performances. Then in 2022, like a wave of a magical mediocre wand, "Disenchanted" arrived straight to Disney+, and the result is as you'd expect from a sequel no one asked for from a film hardly anyone remembers - like a spell of forgetfulness, you won't remember a thing about it.

Ten years after settling in New York City for her happily ever after, Giselle (Amy Adams) has become disenchanted with the big city and plans to move to the suburbs with her husband Robert (Patrick Dempsey), his now-teenage daughter Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino), and their newborn baby Sofia. Arriving in Monroeville, they realize that their fixer uper house isn't quite done yet, and Morgan has turned to a synical, sarcastic teenager who doesn't want to move away from her friends to a new community, and Giselle is distraught about her decision. Then she meets Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph), the egotistical head of the town council, and she's immediately thrown off by Giselle's constant upbeat personality.

Giselle is then visited by Edward (James Marsden) and Nancy (Idina Menzel), the King and Queen of Andalasia, and present her with a housewarming gift: a wish-granting wand. Giselle wishes that her life would be a fairytale after Morgan calls her stepmother, and Monroeville is transformed to a real-life fairytale village. Morgan is turned to a lowly stepchild, Robert into a swashbuckling hero, and Malvina into a wicked witch, and Giselle finds herself trapped in her own spell - since Morgan considers her a stepmother, she slowly turns into an evil stepmother. As the evil slowly takes over, she learns that she has until midnight to fix everything before it becomes permanent, and it's up to Morgan to stop the wish from being fulfilled forever.

"Disenchanted" throws all the things that made "Enchanted" so witty and unique out the window and settles in for a generic fairytale story, proof that the Disney sequel-making machine defeats any sense of soul or emotion in their products in favor of gluing more eyes to the screen. Sure, the concept of Giselle turning evil is unique on its own, but there's no emotional depth to it. In the two-hour film there's a lot of action and spectacle, but very little characterization or emotional moments to be had, which is odd coming from a film written by four people that could've taken one to accomplish. Unlike "Enchanted," this one plays to the fairytale tropes that we've all seen before, and while the cinematography, music, and costumes are lavish and colorful, it's like throwing up a rainbow - colorful, but you don't want to eat the substance of it.

There's a few things I do admire about this soul-less sequel, and one of them is the fact that all the main principle actors who were in the 2007 original returned for this one. Typically a sequel set years after the first recasts some of the roles due to the actors being too big or too busy to do another one, but Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, Idina Menzel and James Marsden all returned to their roles and it's as if no time has passed for them. While they're committed to the bit, they're not given a rich enough story to warrant such a sequel. No one moves forward, and only Giselle has a unique arc with the fact that she has to play both a nice naive housewife and evil stepmother, and of course she nails it on both ends. Dempsey is wasted in a B-story of him going out searching for adventures, and Menzel and Marsden serve as plot points that barely appear in the film.

The newcomers fair a bit better than most of the returning cast, as Maya Rudolph does her Maya Rudolph thing as both the sneering alpha-female town council leader and the wannabe Snow White witch, equipped with her dim-witted followers (Jayma Mays and Yvette Nicole Brown, who also do the best with what little they had). Gabriella Baldacchino takes on the role of the teenage Morgan and also performs well, showcasing the generic tropes of teenage angst as well as finally coming to terms with the importance of family and the magic of togetherness or something like that.

Another thing I liked is the cinematography and costume designs, both of which play to full strength the idea of the town becoming a real-life fairytale. The colors are vibrant, active, and almost too bright to handle, and the costumes are lavish, lively, and perfect for the story. Yet it all felt like a longer episode of "Once Upon a Time," and eventually in the end it turns into a film that you'll easily forget, with nothing to really set it apart. It's fine on its own, and an enjoyable watch, but not something you'll be eager to watch again anytime soon.

The Score: B