Disenchanted (2022)

Disenchanted (2022)

 

3/10

 

Starring

Amy Adams

Patrick Dempsey

Maya Rudolph

Idina Menzel

James Marsden

 

Directed by Adam Shankman

 

Enchanted was an amazing movie. I enjoyed it very much and looked forward to seeing this sequel, but in the end, I was disappointed. This movie is a big letdown and was not well written or directed. It was annoying and cringy for a movie that started with so much promise. It’s still a musical fantasy romantic comedy, although in this one, the romance takes a backseat with a wasted Morgan link to a male character.

If you haven’t seen the first movie, Enchanted (2007), then watching this one will be a waste of your time. Sadly, even if you have seen the first movie, watching this will also be a waste of your time. When the story starts with a now-teenager Morgan, you’re hooked because the last time we saw Morgan, she was a little girl hooked on fairytales and princesses. How she would deal with life as a teenager who’s witnessed fairytales and princesses was something I wanted to see.

I was craving seeing Amy Adams again as Giselle, and her new life with Morgan and Robert, and I got what I wanted for like twenty minutes. But the moment Edward arrived (James Marsden reprising his role, as almost everyone else does) bringing a gift, the movie rang the bell of predictability.

The cool thing about Enchanted was that you knew what was going to happen; it was the path to happily ever after that was the fun. This sequel tried to do the same thing but with no finesse, and the path to it wasn’t enjoyable—just TV movie-set writing with B-movie, wasted effects.

Wow, now Giselle is the stepmother who thinks she can fix everything and just ends up making everything worse. Then she tries to fix that mess by making one of the most foolish wishes you can think of. The wish made no sense, tanked everything she’d built, and was one of those things you saw coming, hoping the writers would be smart enough to sidestep the foolish idea. Nope, they charged right into it.

Why couldn’t they make a movie where Morgan and Giselle just got along on the surface? Many of us did with our parents when we were young—we knew they didn’t understand, but on the surface, we just got along with it. Movies always overdramatize the mother-and-daughter teenage years or the stepmom-stepdaughter dynamic. I know many stepmoms and stepdaughters who get along.

What I expected was Morgan having issues, with Giselle not understanding, and watching them figure each other out. Not a stupid fight that ends in a foolish wish. I wanted them to talk to one another, try to understand each other’s worlds, but that didn’t happen. There was no need for a guy in Morgan’s life; it just made the movie feel rushed. She is struggling to fit into school, and then there’s a guy in her life in a movie that’s not even focused on her, but on someone else. They just moved to a new place, and suddenly there’s romance in her life—where was the time to develop this? This movie includes numerous supporting characters who have their own screentime to fill.

Add the songs they sing in between all this mess, and Morgan’s school problem and guy issue seem rushed, with no depth, just making the whole thing worse.

I hate the fact that Disney+ made this movie.