Starring Amy Adams, Maya Rudolph, Patrick Dempsey, and Gabriella Baladacchio
Directed by Adam Shankman
Music by Alan Menken; Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Talk of a sequel to Enchanted began early as 2010...but it got kicked around to various authors until 2020, when the script was finally ready after over a decade. In the interim, Disney and the movie industry had gone through enormous changes. Disney was back on top, thanks to a series of hits that questioned their older fairy tale tropes (Frozen, Tangled) or ignored them all together (Wreck It Ralph, Zootopia)...but the 2020 pandemic hit them hard. With family movies frequently faltering at the box office, Disney released Disnenchanted to its streaming service Disney Plus. Does the mixture of fantasy, reality, music, and animation still work after over a decade, or should it be shoved back into Andalusia? Let's begin with Pip (Griffin Neuman) the chipmunk explaining how Giselle (Adams) ended up moving her family to the suburbs and find out...
The Story: Giselle is thrilled to move her family to the seemingly bucolic suburb Monroeville, but her husband Robert (Dempsey) and stepdaughter Morgan (Baldacchio) aren't as thrilled. Their Victorian home is falling apart, Robert has to commute long hours to work, and Morgan doesn't get along in her new school. Giselle tries to promote Morgan as the queen of the town's upcoming fairy tale ball. In her enthusiasm, she ends up embarrassing Morgan and causing trouble with Malvina Monroe (Maya Randolph), the head of the town council. She wants her son Tyson (Kolton Stewart) to be prince of the ball.
King Edward (James Marsden) and Queen Nancy (Idina Mentzel) brought a wish-making magic wand from Andalusia as a housewarming gift. Giselle uses it to wish she had a perfect fairy tale life, with no missing husbands or pouting teens. It works...too well. Giselle didn't expect the fairy tale she'd end up in would be Cinderella. Now she's turning into a genuine wicked stepmother who mistreats her daughter, Robert is a knight who is too busy slaying dragons to have time for her, and Malvina is the even nastier queen. Giselle has to remember who she is and why she loves her family before the clock chimes midnight...and Andelusia disappears permanently.
The Animation: Not used as much this time around, and maybe it's just as well. I suspect that, while it still looks 2D, it may have been done by a computer. It's not as lush, with less details in the background and on the characters. It looks less like a Disney movie of the 50's and more like one of their recent TV shows.
The Song and Dance: Adams is really the only reason to see this one. She's having a grand time, swirling around with the chorus and trying to make the best of the situation, even when her family has to live in the master bedroom because their new home is still being worked on. She plays off well against the more dour Balacchio. Randolph does almost as well as the stuck-up head of the town council who isn't used to newcomers challenging her and the spoiled queen who wants to hang on to her power in any way possible. The costumes and sets remain gorgeous; the latter were filmed in a real Irish small town made to look like upstate New York.
Favorite Number: We open with Pip singing about how things are going in "Andelusia," and giving us the origins of Giselle before and after she came to New York. Giselle sings about how Monroeville will be "Even More Enchanted," but with construction workers moving all around her, her stepdaughter doesn't buy it. Edward and Nancy tell them about "The Magic of Andelusia" and how the wishing wand works. Giselle wants desperately to return to "Fairy Tale Life"...and thinks she has when she wakes up and the appliances and chorus of peasants join in.
Morgan claims everything is "Perfect" as she shops for flowers in town...then wishes that maybe it wasn't quite so much. Marvina and Giselle contrast and compare their evil powers, as they desire to be "Badder"...and better than the other. Nancy finally gets a number, "Love Power," as she reveals to Morgan how she can restore her stepmother to normal.
What I Don't Like: Nothing else works. Most of the other actors, including Dempsey and Stewart, don't have enough to do. We don't really see enough of Morgan or Tyson to understand why she has a crush on him or why she's acting the way she is, other than the move. There's a kernel of a good idea here, but it's lost under a morass of silly references that aren't worked nearly as well into the script and half-baked characterizations. Not to mention, fairy tale satire is really overworked now, especially with Disney having embraced other types of fantasy and other tropes.
The Big Finale: Truth be told, the reason I put off reviewing this for so long is I suspected the moment they announced a sequel that it wouldn't work. They tried too hard to make the movie magical, only for it to end up being mundane. Only worth checking out for major fans of Adams, the cast, or the first film.
Home Media: It's a Disney Plus exclusive at the moment.
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