The Enchanting Disenchanted

Even though that I enjoyed this movie the average score I gave this movie is a 4.5/10. Where 1 is an awful movie that I regret watching, 5 is average, and 10 is the best movie I have ever seen. Disenchanted scored below average.

Plot: 5/10

The plot is average. From the trailer we know that Giselle and her family move to a new home and life is not as a fairy tale that Giselle hoped for. After Prince Edward and Nancy gave her, an Andalasia wishing wand she uses it to have a fairy tale life. While everything starts out well for her, she becomes more wicked because no stepmother is nice. The rest of the movie focuses on accepting our circumstances and undoing the spell with so many references to Disney princesses’ films, which was fun to tally.

To me I thought this was an interesting take on a story and would have given it a higher rating, however Robert’s arc is lame. Before Giselle makes the wish, we see the daunting trail that Robert is making for his family, but never becomes resolved. Instead, when the world becomes a fairy tale, he goes through a midlife crisis which came out of nowhere and he never contributed to the main plot. While in the fairy tale era he is hardly ever with Giselle.

Acting: 7/10

The actors did a phenomenal job in this movie. You can tell that most actors were enjoying their roles. I will just highlight a few actors that stood out to me.

James Marsden (Prince Edward): You may know him as the original cyclops in X-Men or you may have seen him in Sonic the Hedgehog movie as Tom. After watching this movie, I realized how underappreciated he is. He played Prince Edwards with such enthusiasm you can tell that he enjoyed playing Prince Edward. The only downside is that I wish he was in the movie more.

Amy Adams (Giselle): Her performance was outstanding. Like James Marsden you can tell that she is enjoying her time playing Giselle. She does a great job being sweet and caring and she makes a believable evil stepmother. She does the squint with her eyes throughout the movie that makes you know that she believes that you are inferior to her when she is evil. I loved watching her perform in this movie.

Maya Rudolph (Malvina Monroe): Princess Disney movies usually have one villain, and, in this movie, there are two Maya being the main antagonist of the movie. In the real world she plays an overbearing mother that likes control and after the wish is made by Giselle, she become the wicked queen. She convinced me that she enjoyed bossing her coworkers around.

Music: 2/10

Usually in musicals you want the tune to be catchy and the lyrics to be understood and repeatable. The catchier the song the more popular they will become. Alan Menken who is known to compose Disney classics like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas composed the music for this movie. Unlike the movies that were previously mentioned the music in this movie was not as great as his other works. Most of the songs were hard to interpret, and the music wasn’t catchy except for one song.

“Badder” was the best song in the movie. The lyrics was memorable by repeating fictious song title “badder”. The song was catchy and Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph did a brilliant job performing and singing this song. By the end of the song, I didn’t know who was badder, but I wouldn’t want to ever get on their bad sides.

Effects: 4/10

I think the effects was below average for Disney meaning the CGI looked not as realistic as it has been in other movies. However, this movie is supposed to be fairy tale, so the cheaper effects played well to allude to the fairy tale setting.

Cutting between scenes were good nothing stood out of place to me. I think the best cutting took place in the song “Badder”. The cutting between Giselle and Malvina in this song helped make this duet to be perfect. Both showing that these two are very similar to each other, but also giving a stark difference between the two by giving one a brighter tone color with the other having a dark tone.

Also, I should mention 90% of the dresses that Amy Adams wore were beautiful. I think my favorite it the peacock dress that she wore in "Badder". Disney should sell those dresses so I can get them for my spouse who would look better in them. 

Conclusion

I enjoyed this movie even though I didn’t give the movie high marks doesn’t mean that it was not fun to watch. Most of the actors seemed to enjoy playing their role. All actors from the first movie returned to be in this movie after 15 years from the first being made. I believe all those that are on the fence about watching this movie will enjoy it especially if you are a Disney fan. I personally enjoyed spotting all Disney references throughout the movie.