Descendants : L'Ascension de Red

Positives are this movie is fun with good performances and lots of good musical moments.

It's costume designs and visuals are top tier for a straight to Disney+ movie, seriously the CGI was surprisingly good. (Like better than a lot of recent blockbusters I've seen) Rita Ora gives such a delicious performance as Queen of Hearts, she's the easy standout and has a real classic Disney villain vibe to her. The fun evil kind with a great evil laugh. Brandy as Cinderella is also amazing, she has a warmth and calmth that make her so motherly while also being so regal and her contrast with the Queen of Heart just works so well! The first Act of the movie sets up the plot well and was my favourite.

Negatives are well the writing and character actions are certainly off, particularly after Act 1. But what lets this movie down is the ending. Without spoiling, it's certainly not satisfying and makes you go wait it's over? While the cast are all teasing a sequel it makes me feel they rushed to the end and wasted lots of the build up throughout just for a potential to return to it later rather than properly fleshing out the story and developing it's new characters with the first movie. Every character feels underdeveloped and like they did very little because, in truth, very little actually happened.

Still though I'd recommend but I hope the sequel actually feels complete and doesn't opt for setting up a 3rd movie.

This movie feels like the producers had made a bunch of music videos and attempted to thread them all together with the thinest of plots. Great movies show don't tell.

I really loved the first 3. All the songs made sense to the plot and most of the story provided fairly believable character arcs. The actors are doing their best here with a subpar script. It was great to see Uma with her crew. That remix on her song was really fun. She barely has anything to do here. Cinderella and Pronce Charming we also wonderful to see together, even though it was extra lovey lovey. I also enjoyed their teenage counterparts.

Honestly, I could see a version of this story working with these same actors. They just needed a better script!

Not gonna lie, I was STUPID excited when I saw Brandy was going to be Cinderella. She's my favorite version of the character. I think I was more excited to see her than anything else. And I was happy they got Paolo Montalban to come back as Charming.

And I loved Jeremy Swift as Merlin. He was just like the one from Sword in the Stone. Made him a delight to watch.

For what it is, an adolescent fantasy movie, I really enjoyed it. Music had more of a rock feel then previous Descendants movies. Cast was fun to watch.

The writing could have used a little more work. Feels like they were trying a little bit too hard at times.

Ny daughter was SO exited about this but unfortunately did not live up to the other films. The songs are below average (apart from one villain song) the acting is terrible and the whole story is boring. Rita Ora is the best singer and she doesn't have enough screen time. The character Red is sad and unlikable and not in the way I think they wanted her to be portrayed . A few cameos may have saved it but we don't get any. After an our 30 mins we knew this wa snot going to be good !

If you like the other films, don't bother watching this one, just rewatch the originals. Let's hope the new Zombies is better. Very disappointing.

I loved the first 3 Descendants movies and was super excited to see what Rise of Red would do now that most of the original cast didn't wanna come back. Started out super strong with both Chole and Red's intros. I wish they stayed in the past a little more and extended the end giving it a bit more impact than what they did. Some of the songs I agree were a bit unnecessary for plot progression. Costumes were pretty good and felt like they would do nicely next to the OG Vks. I will say that we could have spent more time in Wonderland with Red seeing more of how life is there. I feel like seeing a young Maddox would also have been neat as well. There was definitely a missed opportunity to have the time machine break and have young Maddox fix it. As well as the Queens maybe remembering that they saw their daughters in the past. Just also making the ending longer would have been great.