Wish, one of the most highly anticipated Disney movies of the year, has finally come out this past week. First premiering on November 22nd, this animated adventure follows Asha, voiced by Ariana DeBose, as she tries to defeat the malicious king, Magnifico, voiced by Chris Pine, and free the people of Rosas’s wishes. King Magnifico was a powerful sorcerer who invited people from all over the world to grant one wish, and one of those wishes would be granted in a monthly ceremony hosted by the king. After figuring out that the king is purposely not granting some of the wishes, Asha decides to steal the wishes to give back to the people in her kingdom. While the animated feature had a lot of promise, I was quite disappointed with the overall project.
One of the main aspects of the film that had a lot of criticism was the new animation style the movie was drawn in. The animation style was half 2D and 3D, causing many audience members to be upset by this change since most modern Disney movies are animated in 3D. Despite the change, I quite enjoyed the animation and thought it blended in nicely together. Due to the film falling under Disney’s 100th anniversary, the filmmakers wanted to include both the old hand-drawn 2D backgrounds from older Disney films and incorporate the new realistic 3D animation. I thought it was a nice tribute to the style evolution that Disney has severely grown from and I really enjoyed how the background complimented the look of the characters as well.
One of the main things that I had an issue with was the use of comedy within the dialogues of some of the characters. Our main character Asha, is a sweet, quirky, brave protagonist who has a lot of strong qualities about her that I deeply enjoyed while watching. But most of the dialogue that was supposed to come out funny, came out very flat and dry. A lot of the jokes just did not hit which was disappointing. The dialogue in general felt like it was trying to be quirky and interesting, but left me bored.
The plot had a lot of promise and I was definitely intrigued by the prospect of this magical kingdom. As mentioned above, Asha’s main goal is to steal the wishes from Magnifico and return them to their rightful owners. While this sweet and wholesome mission was fun to watch, I felt like the main goal of the movie didn’t have enough reason behind it. I felt that the plot was unfinished and needed more backstory to fully understand the movie.
Disney is known for their musical numbers and this film is no exception. I really enjoyed the songs sung in the film, both actors DeBose and Pine have great voices and truly stood out for me. Some of my favorites included DeBose’s solo song, “This Wish,” and Pine’s solo song, “This is The Thanks I Get?” Both of these songs truly showed the character’s personality better and the audience was able to understand them better as well.
Overall, I thought Wish was mediocre and expected way more than what Disney gave us. I still would suggest it if you are a hardcore Disney fan, but if you were just looking for something fun to watch, I would suggest any other Disney movie. This movie spent way too much time trying to highlight Disney’s anniversary rather than focus on the actual plot.
