WesternAnimation Disney on Autopilot
Saying that American animated movies need to move on from the Disney formula is like saying that Taylor Swift should never try to rap again. Everyone knows this, but no one does anything to fix it, so it continues to persist, basically telling everyone in Hollywood that we want more of this stuff. It says a lot, I imagine, about the tastes of the average Disney fan nowadays that all it takes is one slight deviation from the norm to— at least in theory— make them excited for the latest offering. Seen in that light, Wish feels less like a work of cinematic art befitting of a studio's 100th anniversary and more like a cynically manufactured product.
You'll probably notice that I haven't actually discussed what Wish is about yet, and there's a reason for that. The story feels like an afterthought, conceived as an excuse to shoehorn in as many references to other Disney movies as possible. For the uninitiated, Wish takes place on the island of Rosas, ruled by the sorcerer Magnifico. Every month, Magnifico chooses one of his subjects' wishes to grant. Our heroine, Asha, seeks to become the sorcerer's apprentice (geddit?) in hopes that he will grant her grandfather's wish, only to find out that Magnifico doesn't grant wishes he thinks will threaten his power. With the help of her seven friends (themed after the Seven Dwarves from Snow White), a talking goat, and a wishing star, Asha decides to expose Magnifico for the tyrant he is, and believes that everyone deserves to have their wish granted.
Watching Wish, an odd sense of deja vu starts to creep over you— a feeling that somehow, you've seen this movie before, under a different name. It's not unwarranted. Wish shamelessly uses every trope imaginable for a Disney animated movie while adding very little new or unusual. Its one "interesting" element is the presence of an unambiguous villain after over a decade of twist villains and metaphorical antagonists, but even that seems calculated. Magnifico seems unlikely to become a classic Disney bad guy alongside the likes of Maleficent, Ursula, or Jafar. Asha, meanwhile, is a virtual photocopy of Rapunzel, Moana, Elsa, Anna, and Raya, right down to her vaguely-rebellious-but-still-feminine personality.
Ultimately, Wish isn't exactly a "bad" movie in the traditional sense. The animation and the script are both competent, if unremarkable. But by that same token, it feels like another studio's attempt at replicating the Disney formula. I might be more forgiving towards it if that were actually the case, but this is Disney themselves, who have made much more creative movies and are held to a much higher standard. If anything, Wish shows how coldly formulaic Disney has become.
WesternAnimation Watch any other Disney movie.
Wish is.... fine. That's really the strongest thing I can muster to say about it. It's fine. It's not terrible, or even really all that bad. No part of it is particularly offensive in any way — unless you're really prone to being bothered by mediocre musical numbers. But on the other hand, it's not really good either, and certainly not great.
The songs aren't obnoxious, but aren't really very memorable.
Main character Asha is likable enough and her goals make sense, but she's not nearly as fleshed-out and compelling as the likes of Rapunzel.
The sidekick characters never get in the way to the point of being annoying, but clearly exist to be.... well, marketable sidekicks characters.
The closest thing to a highlight is the villain, King Magnifico, with a fun vocal performance from Chris Pine. But even he doesn't really get to shine as much as some of the great Disney villains of the past, with hints towards a fascinating backstory that goes underutilized. It also doesn't help knowing that his wife Queen Amaya was also originally conceptualized as a villain herself — having a pair of classy evil royals in Unholy Matrimony sounds great and way more entertaining than anything in the final product.
Overall, it plays things safe, not really taking any risks with the formula — if you've seen any other modern Disney movies, you'll recognize a lot of similar elements and probably figure out where the plot's going with no big surprises. This isn't strictly a bad thing, but it comes at the cost of making it feel like it lacks a unique identity. The numerous references to other Disney properties only reinforces this feeling, as it constantly reminds you of those other movies and how they did just about everything you're seeing better.
WesternAnimation So okay, it’s average
The title says it all really. It’s neither great nor terrible but average. To get right to it, a lot of people myself included thought that this would be the first Disney Animated Canon movie since Tangled to have a straightforward villain and unfortunately it didn’t. For the first half of the movie King Magnifico falls more into the category of not evil just misguided and the second half he’s controlled by a magic book that forces him to do evil rather than being his choice. While I can damn him for opening the book in the first place as I would for Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it’s still a far cry from the classic Disney villains we all Love to Hate. Magnifico is still the best character in the movie but that damns him with faint praise.
The message of seeking to realize your wishes through your own efforts was a good one but it’s muddled by Asha becoming a Fairy Godmother at the end.
The music was fine but that of Encanto was far better.
Asha’s friends lacked the simple charm that the seven Dwarves had in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
I know there is a certain segment of the population who tend to dislike modern Disney projects for shoehorned political messages but I honestly didn’t find any of that here.
And I definitely enjoyed the Easter Eggs to other Disney movies but the downside to that was being reminded of much better movies.
I can’t really find anything I hate about this film but I can’t find anything that is truly worthy of praise either. It’s just average. So Okay, It's Average.
WesternAnimation 100 Years of Disney Led to THIS?
Back in 2009, Disney's The Princess and the Frog cynically - and satisfyingly - deconstructed and reconstructed the company's most prevailing refrain. "I thought wishing on stars was for babies and crazy people", that movie said. Then 14 years later we get Wish, that tries to repeat the conversation about wishing on stars, without the wit or wisdom.
The prevailing view of Wish is that it is an astonishingly bland movie, to the extent that it looks a lot like an AI chewed up and regurgitated Disney's past works. I am confident AI played no part, the lifelessness can be blamed on Disney's mandate to produce the safest, least unambitious animated movie to celebrate its 100 year anniversary. The brief seemed to have been, "make a movie in which the words, 'Wish', 'star' and 'dream' are repeated fifty times. The rest doesn't matter."
Wish follows Asha, who aspires to become apprentice to the all powerful sorcerer, King, and show-boater Magnifico. Magnifico is beloved by his people because he magically grants the wishes of his subjects, but Asha quickly learns there is a dark side to the sorcerer's benevolent rule.
The mechanics of how wishes are granted by Magnifico need expanding on. People remove their greatest heart's wish from their body and into a glass bauble to hand it to Magnifico, which causes them to forget what the wish was. The pinch is that Magnifico only grants a handful of the safest, most banal wishes that pose no risk to his authority, and he locks away the rest indefinitely, preventing anyone from pursuing their ambitions by themselves (or even knowing what they were). Whilst the implications of this are interesting, it is a blatant contrivance, and exactly what I would expect from the same screenwriters who gave us the, "we can cure ice related injuries but only by erasing memories" plot point from Frozen.
Much is made of the unique art style to Wish. The best thing I can say is that it is the most experimental thing about this movie. But it is a failed experiment that makes an undoubtably expensive movie look cheap. 3D characters flutter over painted 2D backgrounds in a way that is constantly distracting, and gives the impression of a weirdly flat world. The rest of the movie, the songs, the characters, the dialogue, are unremarkable. Magnifico is the only stand out element of the movie, especially as it has been a while since we've had a standard Disney villain who is so transparently evil for evil's sake.
Wish is not painful to watch. It deserves that faint praise at least. But it will make me suffer all the same, as I'm doomed to watch it many, many times before my three year old finally gets over it and moves onto something else.