Plot: It has been 15 years since Giselle and Robert wed, but Giselle has grown disillusioned with life in the city, so they move their growing family to the sleepy suburban community of Monroeville in search of a more fairy-tale life. Frustrated that her happily ever after hasn’t been so easy to find, she turns to the magic of Andalasia for help, accidentally transforming the entire town into a real-life fairy tale and placing her family’s future happiness in jeopardy. Now, Giselle is in a race against time to reverse the spell and determine what happily ever after truly means to her and her family.
Review: 2007’s Enchanted was a surprisingly good time thanks to a blend of cheeky humor poking fun at the legacy of Disney animated fairy tales with catchy musical numbers. With Amy Adams impeccably portraying a princess transplanted in New York City from her animated fairytale realm, Enchanted did for animated Disney fare what Elf did for Christmas movies. Patrick Dempsey was great as the jaded widower, James Marsden was hilarious as the doofy Prince Charming, and Susan Sarandon was dastardly as the wicked queen. While a sequel had been a hot property immediately after Enchanted became a box office hit, it has been a decade and a half in the making. Disenchanted is certainly big screen worthy with a mix of bigger musical numbers, solid special effects, and a whimsical story, but it feels far less special than the original film and doesn’t quite capture the same charm it had fifteen years ago.
Opening with a quick summary of the original film through a bedtime story read by animated squirrel Pip, Disenchanted continues the story of Giselle (Amy Adams) and Robert (Patrick Dempsey) in the years after their marriage. Relocating to the idyllic suburb of Monroeville, Giselle and Robert and now teenaged Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino taking over for Rachel Covey) and their infant daughter juggle everything that comes with leaving the big city. Morgan misses her friends, Robert deals with a long commute, and Giselle finds the magic draining from the monotony of everyday life. She also feels distance growing between her and Morgan, something exacerbated by the presence of Monroeville queen bee Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph). When Edward (James Marsden) and Nancy (Idina Menzel) gift Giselle with an Andalasian wishing wand as a house-warming gift, Giselle turns Monroeville into a fairytale realm while also transforming herself into a villainous and wicked stepmother.
Right from the start, Disenchanted brings some of the same wit and charm as the original film as the Philip family deal with moving to the suburbs. Giselle’s quaint and naive approach to the world is still endearing and when she breaks into song early in the film, it is a welcome return to the first movie. I was smiling seeing Amy Adams start singing like a real-life princess. But, once Giselle makes her wish and changes the entire town into a replica of an Andalasian village, transforming Malvina into an evil queen, the story loses some of its whimsy. With at least twice as many songs as the original, including a duet between Adams and Rudolph plus a solo number for Menzel, this movie feels much more like a musical. It also struggles to achieve the balance between reality and fantasy that made Enchanted so endearing. There is no fish out of water element to this story and that ends up making it feel like elevated cosplay.
With more characters than the first, Disenchanted wastes the potential to have told this story using the backdrop of suburban small towns but instead just feels like the more generic live-action adaptations of Disney animated films, right down to the mediocre CGI animals. The solid casting of Jayma Mays and Yvette Nicole Brown could have been used more effectively and Patrick Dempsey’s role could have been better integrated into the story, but this feels constructed as nothing more than a means to get Amy Adams to face off with Maya Rudolph, their chemistry more than worth sitting through the weaker parts of this movie. Adams does a good job of playing both sides of Giselle’s personality, but neither is given enough time to really develop. The standout addition to this cast is Gabriella Baldacchino who gets to do a lot of heavy lifting in this story as well as Idina Menzel whose role is expanded from the original.
Director Adam Shankman has experience with big-screen musicals having directed Rock of Ages and Hairspray, but his approach to Disenchanted feels closer to his over-the-top family film Bedtime Stories. The CGI is abundant and the sets are vibrant, but the entire town of Monroeville feels like a studio set rather than the on-location filming the first movie did in Manhattan. While I am sure this saved on production costs which likely went to the full soundtrack of great songs courtesy of Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz though none of them are as catchy as the music from Enchanted. The choreography is good and everything feels satisfyingly fantastic and fun and yet I never felt invested enough in this story to care as much as I did with the original. Clocking in at just under two hours, Disenchanted feels like it rushes the first hour to build towards the fairytale transformations before the final act takes forty minutes to wrap things up.
Disenchanted will certainly appease fans of Enchanted who want to experience the further adventures of Giselle but this thinly written story is heavy on charm and low on sense. The plot does not work if you dig into it and serves more as a vehicle for stringing together the musical numbers. As good as Maya Rudolph and Amy Adams are on screen together, too much of this film is structured around their eventual showdown which leaves the rest of the cast feeling unnecessary. I wanted to like Disenchanted more and despite enjoying the music, this sequel is disappointingly bland. Had this hit the big screen, Disney would have surely banked a solid opening weekend but not much else. By premiering it on Disney+, Disenchanted will surely become one of the most streamed films of the year but will quickly be forgotten.
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