Wish

Disney's 100th celebration falls flat with "Wish," a film that struggles to maintain its own identity in the beloved Disney animated canon.

Unfortunately the problem with the film is the story is so underdeveloped and poorly executed. There are no stakes and the end result is a muddled theme, uneven pacing, and boring, flat characters. The film attempts to pay homage to older Disney classics and all the ingredients are there: lovable characters, a menacing, tongue-in cheek villain, cute animal sidekicks, and interesting concepts; but instead of "showing" the character beats like older films, we are "told" the story through bland dialogue and little action. Asha joins Disney's recent line of uninspiring "adorkable" female protagonists, with no defining motivations or character growth. This quirky, clumsy character archetype for Disney princesses has been recycled for the past decade with Rapunzel, Anna, Moana, and Mirabel. The animation and sound don't fair better, with bland, pop-y music that feels like filler and a combination of animation styles that look unpolished. There is no "Be Our Guest," "Part of your World," "Let it Go" or "We Don't Talk about Bruno".

It's laughable that one of the lyrics to the song "I'm a Star" in the movie is "in this universe we are all shareholders." Wish remains harmless entertainment for families but is a painful reminder of what this film sets out to do: please investors. This film is a rushed, soulless, by the numbers paint-job with no innovation in storytelling or animation. A massive disappointment to Disney's legacy and a poor excuse for their 100th animated film.

I enjoyed the songs, but they didn't capture my attention the way Encanto's did. The story was a bit dull and all over the place. I tried to keep expectations low, and while I liked it, I didn't love it like I did Raya and the last dragon, Encanto, or the other recent Disney films. I feel maybe they spent too much time giving nods to classic films, rather than making the story more interesting.

The style was ok, but I agree it looked like early 2000's dreamworks. Not 2D enough like Princess and the frog, and not 3D enough like the more recent films.

Ralph Breaks the Internet was a better nod to classic Disney than this film.

As a whole I really enjoyed this film, it felt how a Disney movie should feel! However there were a few things that happened that make me understand why people are a bit disappointed with this film.

It did feel a bit unoriginal, it pulled things from other Disney films and just mushed them together, for example when Asha is singing through Rosas it felt very much like when Rapunzel was dancing in Corona.

The animation of this film also made my brain feel fuzzy, I don't understand what was wrong with it but it just kept bothering me!

I did really like the villain, the crazy really showed on his face!

The songs in this film I really enjoyed also, I think my favourite was "knowing What I Know Now" the scene with this song was really fun to watch and really made the song what it is!

This movie was boring af. The first song is pretty and I appreciated the chalky animation that appears inspired by the Puss in Boots sequel. Beyond that I was bored to tears.

The plot is beat-by-beat, the villain is pure formula & paper-thin, and they don't invest in any running gags or in enriching any side characters. It's as if they had to reach a deadline so put in the minimal effort necessary to get it finished, which left us with a hollow movie devoid of any magic, held together only by its mind-numbingly predictable narrative.

I feel bad for those who worked hard on this film because this could have been a good movie if the studio just took the time to fill it with personality and character. Instead, Wish is a pretty lifeless addition to the Disney canon.

Note: Apparently there has been a hate-train trashing this film trending all over TikTok. It is why my niece already had a well-formulated opinion on the film at Thanksgiving dinner without having even seen it. Sadly, the thoughts she echoed were pretty spot-on, so she just saved me the trouble of warning her against it.

In the past few years, I haven't really been big with Disney's recent animated movies as while I did like "Soul" and "Raya and the Last Dragon", the other works like "Luca, Encanto, Lightyear, Strange World, Elemental and Turning Red" I wasn't really big on. "Wish", being the 100th Anniversary for Disney, manages to be bland and boring at its best.

Throughout, the animation is solid as there are some good colors, solid structures and designs. There are some good musical instrumental backgrounds as well. I do appreciate that the story isn't based on a sequel, remake or something that already exists and Disney tries to introduce new characters and settings. But the issue is that the narrative is way too familiar from other stories and it lacks the creativity, energy and charm of the good old Disney princess movies which makes it pretty difficult to fully engage with emotionally or to care for. The lack of energy and bland style causes the characters to not be investing as well since none of the characters were engaging or interesting at all. However, the voice performances from the cast members are pretty good. Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine both provided really good voice performances. Including Alan Tudyk as Tudyk is great as usual with his voice works.

The animation, as I mentioned, it's solid as the design models, colors, and movements are pretty good. With the animation using a mix of computer and watercolor, there are some really nice moments but admittedly, there were some animated movements or looks that felt odd, bland and slightly distracting. The dialogue is pretty clunky, the direction was boring, and the singing or musical moments, despite one or two songs being not too bad, the singing and song-writing wasn't good as some of the sound felt like it was written from AI. Like some of the voice and singing sound effects were pretty off. And as a whole, it was mostly boring.

For this being the 100th Anniversary movie for Disney, it's quite embarrassing since there could have been any other movie that could have been pretty fun and all but it seemed Disney decided to go with the bland route.

Overall, children and families will be entertained but this one is definitely one of Disney's weaker movies.