When does the balance between new content, self-indulgence, and budget constraints due to talent strikes become an excuse for a lackluster animated feature from Disney?
Young Asha makes a wish so powerful that it’s answered by a cosmic force, a little ball of boundless energy called Star. With Star’s help, Asha must save her kingdom from King Magnifico and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.
Review
Disney’s Wish follows the story of what may be the next Disney Princess, Asha, on a journey of self-discovery as she finds out that King Magnifico isn’t everything they thought he was. The animation and story plots are everything you would expect from Disney and are very templated. Good versus Evil in its purest and perhaps most innocent form. But we quickly realize that perhaps Disney wanted us to get more out of this than a younger audience would understand, and that is where the film loses its way.
Peppered throughout the film are callbacks and easter eggs to just about every Disney character and property they have ever animated. To be fair Wish has been marketed as something to celebrate Disney’s 100th so this shouldn’t be a surprise but the way it was crammed into the story felt like a fairly poorly executed attempt and pulling at the heartstrings of an older audience at the same time.
Why is that a problem? Nothing wrong with a film that multiple generations can enjoy, especially if you are a big fan of Disney. The attempts to do this were at the detriment of the rest of the story. The other area that tends to make a Disney film memorable and popular is the musical numbers that come out of it. While Wish has 2 larger musical numbers, neither song rises to the joy or epicness of previous triumphs like Frozen or Encanto.
You could argue that Wish is a film about the origin of all the story worlds we eventually visit, each person’s Wish coming true. But the lack of a memorable musical number, a compelling villain, or a focused story, Wish ends up forgettable just hours after leaving the theater. Still, it’s a film you can take your family to see, and even its simple formula is enough for your younger viewers to enjoy, but I would rate it as see it on Disney+ or perhaps DVD/Blu-Ray.
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