Disenchanted: Film Review
I absolutely love the 2007 Disney movie Enchanted so I desperately wanted the long-awaited sequel, Disenchanted, to be good – and it’s pretty decent.
The film is set 15 years after Giselle (Amy Adams) finds her happily ever after with Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter Morgan (now Gabriella Baldacchino) in New York. However, she realises that happily ever after isn’t really a thing in the human world and she is in a funk. The family (now with baby Sophia in tow) decides to have a fresh start by moving to a suburb called Monroeville – a quaint town that’s essentially the human equivalent of Andalasia, Giselle’s 2D animated fairy tale home.
But the move doesn’t fix all the family’s problems and nobody seems happy, so Giselle uses a magic wand to wish for a fairy tale life. She completely changes the world and the town becomes Monrolasia – but the magic is powerful and a dark curse is placed upon Giselle that puts her at war with the town’s Queen Malvina (Maya Rudolph) and her minions (Jayma Mays and Yvette Nicole Brown).
I loved the concept of this sequel because it doesn’t repeat the same formula as the first and it gives us an opportunity to see these characters in a new light. Director Adam Shankman has flipped our expectations of what this follow-up could be on their head. But then again, it would have been boring (and made no sense) if it had been another romantic comedy and if Giselle was the same naive young woman again. A lot changes in 15 years!
In the beginning, I was concerned about the story because I didn’t like seeing the shiny, smiling, ever-positive Giselle feeling sad and despondent. But thankfully the spell changes all that and the old Giselle is back – along with a much darker alter ego. I was thrilled to see this new side of her and for Adams to get more to do. She really sinks her teeth into the dual role and I had a blast seeing her switch between them.
Equally, there is a new twist for Dempsey, who gets to sing and dance a little this time around. Robert gets a fun fairy tale makeover and is now a dashing yet hapless hero who is determined to slay dragons and save damsels. Idina Menzel‘s Nancy is obviously different in this film because she ditched her New York life to live in Andalasia with King Edward (James Marsden). She finally gets to show off those pipes! Marsden is exactly the same and steals every scene he’s in. I love him as Edward and it’s a shame he’s not in it more. That sentiment applies to Rudolph too.
Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz also returned to write original songs for this sequel and sadly these are nowhere near as memorable as the original. Not one is a patch on That’s How You Know! Badder, a villain standoff between Adams and Rudolph, is the standout song in Disenchanted and I enjoyed it in the moment, but I can’t remember it now. I also liked the musical number Fairy Tale Life (After the Spell) because it was choreographed really well and visually wonderful.
The concept may have been solid but the execution is quite shaky and it fails to stick the landing. The final showdown is messy and anti-climatic and when it ended, I was like, ‘Oh, is that it?!’ I liked the majority of the film but it fails to capture the magic of the original.
On Disney+ from Friday 18th November