Tuesday, December 13, 2022

I Quickly Grew Disenchanted With This Sequel

The follow-up to 2007's Enchanted is the kind of middling Disney sequel you often expect from the studio outside of its Pixar theatrical properties. Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey return as Gisele and Robert moving to the suburbs with teen daughter Morgan (now played by Gabriella Baldacchino) and baby Sofia. Despite her hopes of finding a magical new start in the suburbs, the family struggles in their new home leading to Gisele to make a wish turning the entire town into a fairy tale.

While Amy Adams brings back the same spirit to the project, there's not much magic this time around. James Marsden and and Idina Menzel return as well in far smaller roles (and half of that time they are animated). And the sequel features a number of big musical numbers, although none of them are all that interesting or memorable.

The twist to Gisele's wish is how the magic unintentionally affects her role in the town as starts transforming into the evil stepmother and a rival to the town's already evil queen (Maya Rudolph). The locals accept their new roles without hesitation and even Gisele begins to forget about her wish leading to a late rush to nix the spell before midnight (well, not exactly midnight) which will make this new reality permanent.

There's goofiness all over the script including the midnight deadline which passes even if the clock tower never hits midnight (it's delayed for several minutes which didn't actually stop the spell passing the midnight hour). Baldacchino is stuck in a bit of a no-win with Morgan who is typical grumpy teen at the beginning and overly-happy magically dosed teen for the rest of the film (where she does get to show off her musical ability). Dempsey is largely superfluous, and his subplots of seeking out dragons could easily have been cut by having the wish happen while he was still at work in the city. Fans of the original may find some nostalgic fun in seeing these characters back together, but despite the fairy tale setting there's far less magic this time around.

Watch the trailer
  • Title: Disenchanted
  • IMDb: link

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