Wish

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.

There was once a time not so long ago, when the word 'Disney' in an animated project meant so much; a great storytelling experience was guaranteed and a masterpiece was always possible. But as of late, each Disney project has come to feel like a rehash of every other Disney project; slowly killing any amount of excitement one might have looking forward to each new project.

Wish is no different and is as every bit forgettable and uninspiring as people are accusing it of being. If there's anything worth remembering though, it would have to be the watercolor-esque art style, but not even that justifies the movie's existence. Wish lacks depth and is painfully a face-value movie. It has a Disney-protagonist, a Disney-antagonist, a Disney-merch mascot, some Disney-music, and well yea, that's about it.

The question though, is if kids would enjoy it. After all, that's who the movie is primarily aimed at. And the answer might be 'yes', but probably at a level no different than how they might enjoy say Cocomelon or something. There's nothing magical that might stand out and nothing that might inspire. It's yet another Disney showcase of good animation with less than nothing else to accommodate.

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.

In Wish, Disney honors their tradition, and at the same time adds a new movie to their catalogue of animated films. Wish is a nice movie, but lacks what makes Disney animated movies so special.

In Wish, young Asha wishes on a star, and gets more than she bargained for when a star comes down to help her in her quest to defeat the evil king Magnifico.

The greatest advantage the movie has is its gorgeous animation, the brushstrokes painted beautifully on the screen. It is a wondrous blend of hand-drawn animation and 3d animation, a la Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. I hope we get many more films animated in this style, as it is very relaxing and nice to look at.

If only the story matched the visuals... An overly simple story lacks anything of substance. And yes, I'm taking into account that this is a kids movie. I sympathized with the villain (who did not begin the movie evil) in the beginning of the film, only for him to suddenly turn evil out of no where. The film also suffers from a horrifying over dependence on magic. The songs are very good, but they all sound about the same, which isn't a problem in the movie, but I can't imagine the music in this movie selling many CDs. I do have to give the voice actors some credit though. They didn't do anything award worthy, but they did an excellent job.

That being said, while I watched this movie, I enjoyed it. The only reason I went to see it was to take my nephews. Disney has a rich history of making the greatest animated classics of all time. They have a proven formula that works, and I hope they either return to it in the future, or try something else besides Wish. It's a decent movie, but there's nothing memorable about it, and I don't expect it will be long before it is forgotten.

"A disney flop". I've heard complaints about the animation for being "lazy". And yes, it's another style compared to Frozen or Brave, a little more flatter. But I think they still delivered the message. Besides, I also liked the soundtracks a lot.

Maybe for kids the movie's story/main plot is a bit far stretched or "complicated" but from an older perspective I can see what they wanted to say and I think it's a beautiful message. My interpretation of it is simply what was said in the movie, that the king took away his people's humanity to be able to control them. And I think the people being "stars" was a beautiful way of showing humans standing together against a "government" that doesn't care for all the individuals. It matches the state of the real world. The people who's hearts resemble stars are fighting for freedom and happiness, it's something we see now in real life and I think it's beautiful how they mirrored that in the movie. We won't let someone take control and make sure our wishes don't come true because our deep wishes is what makes us whole and keeps us striving.

I agree that the animation itself lacked something but I see the potential. I was happily surprised when the movie, in my opinion, turned out to be much better than I heard it would. Wish has a nice and touching message.