Disenchanted , thedirect - to - Disney+ sequelfor the best Disney resilient - military action fairy tale film , is held together by the magic that is Amy Adams . The account , unfortunately , miss enough of its own conjuring trick to palpate completely satisfying .
In the old picture , Enchanted , her Giselle was a delightful princess - to - be figure that came to life and line up herself in modern - day New York City . She discovered there ’s more to life sentence than “ truthful sexual love ’s kiss ” and ended up with Robert ( Patrick Dempsey ) , a hotshot lawyer , rather than unadulterated himbo prince Edward ( James Marsden ) . The first film captured the sincerity of striving to keep the best of fairy tale ideal in a world that could habituate a little conjuring trick — while break the tropes that require to be broken in real life through euphony and climactic action ( shout out toSusan Sarandonfor being a yummy dragon villain ) .
InDisenchanted , we find Giselle seeking elbow room to retake magic in her life . Her family has outgrow their NYC apartment , her stepdaughter Morgan ( now run by Gabriella Baldacchino ) is a teen , and their family unit has welcomed a new baby , Sofia . So they decide to deracinate to suburban area , Monroeville — a not - so - idyllic place , despite outward appearances , where meanspirited - girl mama Malvina Monroe ( Maya Rudolph ) and her two minions ( Jayme Mays and Yvette Nicole Brown ) take to the woods the show .
Image: Disney+
Seeing that suburbia is not all that it ’s crack up to be and with a teen who misses her former life in the city , Giselle takes matters in her own hands when the opportunity presents itself . It does so in the form of Edward and Nancy ( Idina Menzel ) , who as Sofia ’s magical godparent gift the child a wishing verge , since she ’s a girl of Andalasia . The Seth - up is clever ; after a fight with Morgan , who call her “ footstep - female parent ” out of anger despite the closemouthed relationship they had in the first motion-picture show , Giselle utilize the wand to muster the sort of fairytale sprightliness that drew Morgan to her when they first met .
When Giselle wakes up , Monroeville is a realm , not unlike the ones we ’ve look in series like Galavant and Once Upon a Time . And that ’s where the pic kind of lost me . It quickly fall into a very similar world we ’ve seen done more than once by Disney , but with the Fairytale Core filter turned up and live by much better actors ( Disenchanted does them a disservice , really ) . That said , the costumes on “ good ” Giselle and Morgan are immaculate and feel like modern fancy mode house Selkie meet Disney .
Speaking of “ good ” Giselle , Adams does n’t escape a step in renovate the affirmative , wide - eyed flavor from the first moving-picture show . When the Southern Cross of the plot is introduce — her wish makes her a wicked footstep - female parent by the hour — it ’s presented as a fantastic twist , but the idea becomes disjointed as the film run on . There are too many secret plan threads , between Giselle ’s human relationship with Morgan that tries to be the independent focus , but then there ’s also Giselle versus Malvina for the crown . Nevertheless , Adams relishes in being “ sorry ” Giselle in an stupefying means and totally nails having two different and perfect contrasting energies .
The vitamin B - plots also get mussy with lots of characters you normally would have wanted more of . Dempsey is given two - dimensional electric discharge as Robert trying to find a purpose in a fairy tale world as a hapless hero , which makes no sense to who he was before . Morgan also has a love fib that could have been more salient to sell us on it . And then there ’s Nancy and Edward who just come to write the day , be save , and save the daytime again ; Nancy get the full Fairy Godmother discussion with the celluloid ’s primary melodic numbers . At least Menzel finally gets to sing ! Rudolph also bring up every setting and musical number she ’s in as the perfect transparency to “ bad ” Giselle .
Overall , it ’s corking to see all these part back and flip on various fairytale tropes surrounding queens and girl ; it mostly play , in prominent part because of the cast ’s commitment to their roles . It ’s a shame the history does n’t hold out up to the first film — peradventure it should have been a mini - series instead , to better service the various threads and relationships that writer Brigitte Hales and managing director Adam Shankman clear wanted to explore . I do hope it ’s not the last we see of the characters and there ’s more chapter in the populace of Enchanted to see .
Disenchanted is now stream on Disney+ .
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