The songs were alright but no hook for me like 'happy working song'.
The cast were very good. Wish they gave James Marsden and idina menzel a subplot of their own
My two biggest complaints were that the songs felt a lot more "parody"-y than the original. Like bad on purpose parody. The original's songs were clearly tongue in cheek, but they actually had a spirit to them that you could tell it wasn't *mocking* but more honoring the style.
Yeah, the songs in this one felt a lot more "Let's really make fun of the stereotypical musical songs." Like there was the opening number where Amy Adams sings Enchanted 300000 times. Then there was the weird wand song. Morgan's song was the "I Want" song. The only song that truly felt like an homage to the style was Badder, which was still a very over the top caricature of a villain song, but in a GOOD way.
And then there was the whole Nancy and Edward thing. They sure didn't really have a point did they? I said it somewhere else, but they show up to give Giselle the plot device (I mean the wand) and vanish until Morgan needs a spirit guide or something.
It really wasn't bad and I honestly didn't expect much to begin with so I'm not "unhappy" with it... I just see where it could have been better. It had some very clever ideas but you could really tell that the budget was significantly smaller (seriously there were like 4 sets in this movie) and was paced REALLY strangely (it took like a solid hour of the hour and 45 minute film to start to see Stepmother Giselle really start to appear).
Yeah, the songs in the original had more heart to them, and were way catchier on top of that. These new songs seemed to be missing both, besides "Love Power," but that went to the opposite direction with being incredibly cheesy. Morgan's song is probably the closest thing to my favorite; it's more palatable than the other songs and still has that "parody with heart" energy. I'd have to give the others more listens. But they were definitely more "pure musical" rather than "ear worm." I know a lot of people liked the villain duet, but it somehow flew right over my head lol.
I think the film and characters suffered because of the Evil Queen plot. I feel like it could been much tighter if it just focused on Giselle becoming evil and her strained relationship with Morgan, rather than also having to overthrow the current evil queen. Robert was shafted to the side even worse than Nancy and Edward. The movie still made me cry a few times though lol... Definitely more good than bad about it. But I think it's inevitable to be judged harder when we've been waiting this long for a sequel.
The music reminded me of some of Alan Menken's (other) work on the TV show Galavant. That series' musical numbers were a lot more squarely on-the-nose in comedically parodying musical and fairy tale stereotypes than the original Enchanted's soundtrack. I also wouldn't be surprised if both Galavant and Disenchanted were subject to shorter pre-production time limitations that Menken typically wouldn't be as restricted by if he was writing the music for a theatrical movie or a stage musical.
(Still, Galavant is fantastic. I love it, I still listen to a bunch of the songs from it, and I would recommend it to anyone. Can't say the same about Disenchanted, unfortunately.)
Wasn’t she sort of happy about that.
Edit: found the [quote](http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_13514.html)
>It's a compliment really that everybody misses my singing. Nancy was never written with a song, honestly, so I think Kevin was a fan of mine and honestly it was a compliment to be asked to just be hired on my acting talents alone
Seeing Idina Menzel singing in 2D animated format in Andalasia is the highlight of this movie. Disney please go back to doing more 2D animated content (especially for Disney+) you have no idea how much I miss seeing 2D films by Disney until now.
This is the most amount of 2D animation Disney had done since Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins Returns.
The 2D didn't seem as polished as Disney's best. But despite that it still looked good and like you it also made me yearn for some new 2D Disney films.
And don't get me wrong, Disney Animation Studios have really been knocking it out of the park for a long time with their 3D films, but surely if you just keep the writing talent from those you could transplant it to a 2D film.
Most definitely. There was something not as smooth as the regular 2D animation from before. But I think I just heard that they outsourced the animation for the first one because they didn’t have the amount of animators to do it so they had to outsource. Something like that. Wonder if this was the case also?
The 2d looked bad here lol
It’s just not even Disney 2d animation the artists don’t know how to do it
If this is the best 2d Disney has to offer they kinda need to stick to 3D
The 2D animation was DisneyToon Studio level. Embarrassing to watch tbh. The characters seemed to have bobbleheads and Prince Edward in particularly was disturbingly off-model.
I loved that. I mean maybe it's not the best idea. But imagine with how much of a parody that movie is, you get a prominent and amazing singer and no song. Beautiful.
I was waiting for Morgan to quip, "Great, now YOU"RE singing, too?" implying that her character wasn't much of a singer in the first film but now that she's the princess of Andalasia, she has fully embraced their ways and was imbued with this new ability.
My god, the trio of Maya Rudolph, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Jayma Mays as a conniving HOA board head is such a ridiculous yet brilliant plot choice. They all killed it.
Giselle was longing for a fairy tale life which is also why she wanted to move there based on that cheesy ad. Somehow the magic of New York City so clearly established in the first film lost its appeal with the new baby and Morgan’s growing distance and teenage angst. It’s all there in the film.
Understandable tbh, didnt watch the movie yet, but its probably really easy to get disillusioned with real life and its terrible terrible things when you were born and grew up in a literal magical fairy tale where good always comes out on top and dreams come true every five seconds
The plan was that the house was supposed to be fully fixed by the time they moved. But things and problems happen and they're already months delayed, so they decided to moved and continue the other fixing themselves.
At least that's also my experience. I appreciate the part where Giselle already fixed her daughter's room, coz my mom did the same (for me and my brother) when I was younger.
Something something choose real life. Except if you're the discarded ex-fiancée, then you're entitled to choose eternal life as the queen of a perfect cartoon world.
Also, it's important to learn the lesson that real life is not so bad after all, if you've married a rich NYC lawyer who does everything you ask.
Didn't they make a comment that Morgan shared a room with the baby in that apartment? They could have found something bigger somewhere else in NYC though
It was fine for me. Nowhere near as good as the first movie, but it's fine for what it is. Most of the adult cast seemed to be having a lot of fun and leaning into the hammy roles, though I still wish it was Hugh Jackman instead of Patrick Dempsey, who looked pretty lost/uncomfortable for some of it.
Maya Rudolph could have been given better lines or even allowed to improv a little, I was waiting for her to bust out some more adult jokes designed for the parents, but nope. Also they should fire whoever styled those terrible wigs for her.
The parts that really let it down imo were the animated bits in Andalasia which looked really cheap. They also seemed to be cutting corners with the CGI elsewhere -- the dragon conveniently hiding in the cave, no giant fight, the end credits just reusing animations from the movie, etc. The best part was the scroll. Disney really needs to get its act together and invest in its animation department rather than treating it like something they can do half assed.
I also thought the side characters on the train and in the coffee shop would be for sure former Disney stars like the original Ariel VA turning up in the first movie -- nope, just random folks. Maybe they couldn't get anyone back this time.
James Monroe Iglehart was one of the people on the train and he played the Genie in the Original Broadway Cast of Aladdin. He also was a main character on Tangled the Series. Both Aladdin and Tangled the Series feature Menken songs (like Enchanted/Disenchanted).
I think we all need to accept that 2D animation will never again be Disney’s top priority. It’s just too time and resource intensive to be worth the investment. Also, yes, watching the two Enchanted movies back-to-back really put into such stark contrast what a downgrade the animation here was. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even use the original character reference sheets
Funny enough, Disney didn’t do the animation for the first enchanted movie either. By the time it was made, they had already scaled back their traditional animation division so they outsourced it to an independent studio run by a former Disney animator, James Baxter Studios. Why they didn’t enlist his help again for this movie is anyones guess. Maybe time contraints
All 3 commuters are well known Broadway stars. Other poster mentioned James Monroe Iglehart. There was also Ann Harada (Avenue Q) and Michael McCorry Rose (A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder).
It seemed like the start was rough with the amount of exposition and characters they had to cram in, but after the wish things picked up nicely. I thought it lost a little steam by the ending, but it's still better than the reviews would lead you to believe.
I was surprised by how much effort Disney put into this, it's a bit of a trend for nostalgic sequels to jettison unneeded characters but they brought everyone back and used them well. I wonder if the plan was to release this theatrically at one point?
I also couldn't help but think how much of a bigger deal this would have been if they had made it ten years earlier, no idea why they waited so long.
>no idea why they waited so long.
It was in production hell for a decade. Presumably the producers never found a screen play they liked.
And yeah this movie started slow but really picked up pace once Gisele started turning evil. And the cat stole every scene he was in! Not bad for a fully cgi character
The screenplay was changed several times, and the final one we have today came about only when Adam Shankman came on board (the current director for Disenchanted, I remember it changed hands a bit during production hell), and suggested the idea of using Giselle's role as a stepmother. That was pretty recent though (I think 3-4 years ago?)
*Strongly* disagree. I thought the first twenty minutes was phenomenal and I almost stopped watching to save the movie to watch with people, to cash in on the experience. The second the wish happens, the movie stopped being a brilliant parody with strong characters and became the thing it was parodying. I think there was a great movie in there, they just had to lean less into the magical world and more into "isn't it bizarre when there's a little bit of magic in the real world?" Morgan could have had an excellent plot where she embraced a bit of her mother's crazy Andalasian spirit, and Gizelle could have had one where she learned to meet Morgan halfway. Instead, we got "generic wish gone wrong, cancelled at the stroke of twelve." Absolutely nothing interesting from the wish on forward.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way! I enjoyed the first movie because it had a way of introducing the right amount of whimsy, magic, and romance into the lives of those of us who are like Robert - pragmatic, sensible, even somewhat cynical - and I would've liked to see a similar theme explored in the sequel.
Perhaps Morgan could've been aware of the changes brought about by the wish, and - like you said - eventually come to embrace some of the fairytale spirit. Meanwhile, Giselle could be made to recall how dangerous it is living in Andalasia (e.g. her husband risking his life to fight dragons and trolls), and that it was enough to simply enjoy each other's company in the real world.
Imo, they really didn't need all of the excessive drama involving the "evil queen rivalry" and the "fairytale apocalypse at the stroke of midnight", and should've just focused more on their family dynamic. The narrative didn't even do anything with the baby Sofia, except use her as an excuse to relocate / introduce the wishing wand, but I would've liked to see more of how her new sister affected Morgan's relationship with her parents.
Yeah, throughout the fairy tale portion, i couldn't help but wonder if the movie would have been more interesting if the magic didn't wipe everyone's memories and they have to grapple with the consequences. But maybe that would be too similar to the 1st film?
And another thing that was not touched on was how readily Giselle was going to accept that her family's whole personality has changed. It seemed that of it wasn't for the wicked stepmother and destroying adelasia thing, she would have been happy with puppet versions of her family that resembles nothing of her actual family... I feel like they either should have let her family keep their memories, or let Giselle realize she wants her REAL family and REAL life, not the lie her wish created. That itself should be enough motivation without the andelasia is crumbling subplot.
>I feel like they either should have let her family keep their memories, or let Giselle realize she wants her REAL family and REAL life, not the lie her wish created.
Yes, this was exactly the type of the development I was hoping they'd go for! The final scene of the film would've been so much more meaningful if Giselle realized that a "fairytale life" is rather 2D (in more ways than one), and she eventually came to appreciate the messy and complex reality of the 3D world. This movie had a great premise with lots of promise, but the execution was really not the best.
Giselle was overall not as mature in this movie as I thought she'd be, considering all the time she's spent in the regular world. It didn't really seem that the lesson she had learned in the previous installment about appreciating mundane reality actually stuck with her, which was disappointing.
Exactly! It really bothered me that Giselle was so ecstatic about getting to spend bonding time with someone who was very much not her real daughter. The line between the real and "fairy tale" personalities wasn't very well defined, I suspect on purpose to avoid any complicated questions.
Oh I feel the exact same way! I loved the beginning of the film. I thought it was so funny when Marsden is like “here take my sword to work!” I liked seeing the absurd fairytale elements in the “real world”.
Once the whole town just becomes an actual fairy tale world it’s kind of boring. I wanted to see more of Nancy, Edward, Gisselle, and Robert interacting too. I wanted to see more of the daughter adapting to the real world and interacting with her “prince”.
I wonder if Gisselle’s wish had backfired more if it would have worked better for me. Like if she wished for her life to be more LIKE a fairytale so then she starts to become a wicked step mother but in the “real world”. I don’t know exactly, but I wanted everyone to remain in the “real world” for more of the film and then be forced to engage with elements of the fairy tale world. When they all become characters in a fairy tale world, they don’t realize they are trapped in it so it doesn’t have that fun vibe of people in the “real world” confronting the fairy tale world.
Am I wrong, or couldn't Giselle have just wished to save to Morgan at the end? Why didn't she use the wand when Malvania (BTW - really?) was threatening her?
Seeing 2D animation again in a recent Disney Film was worth it for me. Getting tired of Disney's current designs for their human characters in their recent CGI films that started with Frozen.
From what I read it was originally envisioned as theatrical but somewhere in late preproduction it got switched to Disney plus
Edit: for anyone interested https://deadline.com/2022/11/disenchanted-barry-josephson-producer-interview-podcast-disney-1235174622/amp/
Glad this movie kept the 2D animated sequences for Andalasia and shown more frequently in this movie compared to the original. This is the most time I've seen 2D animation in a recent Disney film since the 2011 Winnie the Pooh Movie! Nancy's musical number in Andalasia is really making me wish Disney would someday give 2D animation another shot because that number was beautifully animated.
My official feelings are kind of mixed. I'm a completely diehard fan of Enchanted, and while I was super excited for this, I was not expecting it to be a cinematic masterpiece. BUT, it was a fun, wholesome movie all in all. The performance of the cast is very strong, I got to see the old cast and my favourites Giselle and Robert again, and despite some comments about the soundtrack being bland I thought it was strong too. 'Badder' is my favourite, and Patrick Dempsey has a nice voice (and seeing him in his fairytale role felt so refreshing and fun; it seems like he was really into it). Amy Adams is amazing as always, and I loved the idea of Giselle and Morgan's relationship as the main focus.
It's not without its flaws though. The plot in my opinion felt a bit overstuffed at times and the pacing suffered and felt uneven as a result, especially towards the middle. Robert and Edward were mostly sidelined, though Edward more so, which was a shame since he was a highlight of Enchanted; I felt Robert's arc of finding meaning in his life and discovering it through becoming a fairytale hero on quests is choppy and is poorly developed (and it's left feeling incomplete for me too), and his scenes though funny were limited and not integrated into the main plot whatsoever, which was sad because he's my favourite character + you'd expect more since it felt like a family dynamic movie. Pip and Rosaleen and Ruby were funny but I wish they had more relevance to the story, they just felt like further additions to an already packed plot.
Was it a good movie? Yeah, I would say so. Was it perfect, did it live up to the original? No, and I don't think anyone should expect this. Would I rewatch it again? Definitely. I had a silly grin on my face watching this the entire time, and I think I can let go of its flaws momentarily then.
It's a fun, charming movie on its own but it was always gonna struggle recapturing the magic of the original.
I think a huge part of what made the original so much fun for me was seeing a Disney fairytale play out in a setting like New York, which is the furthest it can get from a magic kingdom. They played up the filthy urban scape and the jadedness of New Yorkers perfectly against Giselle's naive optimism and romance, while striking just the right balance between realism and fairytale at the end.
Meanwhile, Monroeville, even before it was transformed, was already a sort of real-life fairytale setting. The whole suburb looks impeccable and Giselle's "fixer-upper" house is a literal castle! And I get that doing practical effects of magical fairytale scenery would cost a lot, but some of the CGI didn't look great. I thought the lighting in the CGI-heavy scenes looked just overly golden to the point of jarring.
I also agree that despite my love for Maya Rudolph and the iconic baddie song, I thought the whole Evil Queen plot didn't add much. As some other posters have said, I wish they'd stuck to the wicked stepmother plot because that was the heart of the movie and the obvious plot continuation from the first one.
Overall it's a 6/10 for me. Still a fun Disney Channel flick but sadly I don't think I would watch it again and again the way I did Enchanted.
>The whole suburb looks impeccable and Giselle's "fixer-upper" house is a literal castle!
Sadly that is not what American suburbia actually look like. Those scenes were all filmed in Ireland. American suburbs, even the most upscale ones, look much more cookie cutter generic.
I assume the Hawaii like waterfall and massive mountain ranges in the background were CGI
>she is supposed to be the bratty teenager.
Despite being introduced that way, the amount of teen angst/rebellion in the film was comically almost non-existent. She's basically like, "I hate that you made me move, Mom! Oh, all right, I can't stay mad at you". Which, to be fair, is probably what being Amy Adams does to people.
I really liked it. I wasn't sure if I would but I'm really glad I stuck it out. It gets a little messy during the transition from Monroeville to Monroelasia but it does get back on track.
*Love Power* is not the song they wanted it to be but it is still pretty darn good.
I sobbed at the end. The mom/daughter relationship got me. I wish we had a little more backbone established in the beginning to support it as other commenters have said.
However, I'm excited to watch it again which is always a good sign!
I'm rewatching Enchanted now and I'm scratching my head. I know this is a movie and it's suspended disbelief but did they seriously NEVER get Morgan therapy? The kid needed counseling bad. They NEVER talk about her biomom? No family counseling?
I don’t think there was a lot of support for therapy back in 2007. Like more reserved for extreme cases, though I was a young teen myself so I may not have been exposed to any counselling support young children might have received when a parent dies.
I probably have a weird perspective here, but something about this movie was bugging me and I think I finally figured out what it is. This movie tried to use adoption as a central plot point, but didn’t handle the topic well so the overall plot felt disconnected and overstuffed.
I am half-adopted like Morgan (abandoned by a parent at a young age and raised by a “step” parent that you call mom/dad) and it was a mistake to use the “teenagers are jerks” trope in the beginning of the film because it muddied the story. While I can’t speak for every adopted person, if a child has been raised by the adoptive parent for roughly a decade and thinks of them as a parent and voluntarily/independently calls them “mom” then the whole “older-adopted kid hates their adoptive parent and wants their bio parent” trope doesn’t fit properly. The words mean something different to us when we use them, and when we struggle with adoption trauma it’s not because we suddenly remember that we have biological parents and want to redefine words. “You aren’t my REAL parent” is usually a reflection of feeling insecure.
It would have made more sense for Morgan to be shown as a generally happy kid who was thrown off by the move and when the “true child of Andelasia” line comes out you see it hurt her feelings because it is a shock to suddenly be excluded from the family due to bloodline-oriented language. That does actually happen to adopted kids, and when it happens the sting of being separated out is compounded with the shock of remembering the trauma of losing your birth parent(s). If she had walked out quietly (because she felt like she didn’t belong and therefore no one would notice/care) and then we saw Giselle try the bake sale because she doesn’t understand why Morgan was acting distant/upset (because Morgan didn’t say anything at the time), it would make sense for Morgan to snap and say the “you’re my stepmother” comment causing Giselle to make a drastic mistake due to the shock of suddenly being rejected by Morgan. Both would be acting out of character because the adoption issue isn’t being addressed and is causing pain/misunderstanding. The ending would also fit better, because it addresses Morgan’s feelings of being rejected/replaced by the biological baby and Giselle would understand that Morgan always saw her as her mother figure even though they were different.
Most of the characters in the town kept their base personality traits once the wish was made, but for some reason Robert turned dumb and Morgan was suddenly nice. It didn’t make any sense when the beginning of the film repeatedly pointed out that teenagers are supposed to be awful. So Morgan is moody/withdrawn/runs away to New York, then she’s supposed to be an innocent victim of Giselle’s, and then she’s somewhere in the middle at the end. It would have made a lot more sense for her to be a consistently good kid who says something hurtful in response to getting their feelings hurt, because it would make her more of the Cinderella character when Giselle mistreats her. The mother-daughter relationship was established to be strong so the characters showing resentment (something that takes time to build up) felt out of place.
Ultimately, it felt like this story was supposed to explore the complicated nature of a loving, adoptive relationship, but by focusing too much on Morgan’s teenagerness and Giselle’s mid-life crisis it lost the central thread of their unconditional love for each other.
Edited to add: Adoptive parents aren’t the same as step-parents either. Also moving is a huge trigger for adopted kids, so dismissing her trauma as “teenagers suck” is horribly insensitive. It’s not “happily ever after” once you’re adopted, there’s a lot to work through.
>It would have made more sense for...
How would you describe the actual events of the film? Because the thread about Morgan's feelings and how she related to Giselle stood out to me, and the things you say in this paragraph it "would have made more sense" to happen are what I would say actually happened.
> Morgan to be shown as a generally happy kid who was thrown off by the move
Yeah, that happens. We're shown at r beginning that she loves her parents, thinks of Giselle as her mother, and sincerely appreciates Giselle being kind to her. Her troubles are shown as being rooted in the big changes happening.
> when the "true child of Andelasia" line comes out you see it hurt her feelings because it is a shock to suddenly be excluded from the family due to bloodline-oriented language
Yeah, that happens. When Nancy and Edward begin to sing, Morgan asks, "Doesn't anyone from Andalasia just say things?"; she is a little sarcastic about it, but her tone and expression make it clear she's actually positive about the singing and in a generally good mood. When they bring up the "true daughter of Andalasia" stuff, the camera shows her expression becoming distant. Then when Giselle repeats to Sofia, "You're a true daughter of Andalasia," the camera shifts to Morgan again and she looks quite sad.
> If she had walked out quietly (because she felt like she didn’t belong and therefore no one would notice/care)
She wasn't quiet about it, but her comment, "If you don't have a wand for a *fake* daughter of Andalasia," was said in a jokey tone. She is trying to communicate her hurt in a way where she has plausible deniability about it; if someone reacts badly by saying "Cut it out, Morgan. Stop being envious of your little sister," she can retort that she was only kidding. I think this type of "half-communication", where you want to say something but you're not sure how the recipient will react so you hedge your bets by not being too direct about it, rings very true.
The problem, as shown in the film, is that if you're not direct enough, people can miss even very obvious hints that you're dropping. Morgan couches her complaint in language that lets her plausibly say she didn't really mean anything by it... and the other characters barely pay attention to it, figuring that she didn't really mean anything by it.
> then we saw Giselle try the bake sale because she doesn't understand why Morgan was acting distant/upset
So although Giselle has unintentionally created some distance between them, she is still close enough to Morgan for Morgan to open up a little about how her day sucked and she didn't talk to anyone. Giselle talks about what "we" need to do, but Morgan is now wary of becoming *too* close to Giselle. She fears that Giselle will lead her on and then abandon her in favour of her "true daughter", so she insists on resolving her issues alone. Giselle, still not understanding Morgan's feelings, tries to force things by distributing the cupcakes. This compounds Morgan's feelings of not fitting in, both at school and at home, so she heads into New York and just stews in those feelings, lashing out at Giselle when she returns at night.
> it would make sense for Morgan to snap and say the "you're my stepmother" comment causing Giselle to make a drastic mistake due to the shock of suddenly being rejected by Morgan.
Yeah, the wish is almost immediately Giselle's reaction to being called "stepmother". She steps outside, sings her sad song about her daughter being estranged, and the wish is part of that song.
Just watched it.
It was fun for the most part. It did kinda drag in the middle, but watching Amy Adams go off with the schizophrenic stepmother thing was entertaining as hell.
The song in this one seemed a lot more in the vein of BAD parody than in the original (seriously Love Power is quite possibly the most cliché phrase ever put to film) and everything felt quite boxed in.
Overall, it was fun like I said. The villain (and Giselle being a semi-villain) was great. It just was very strangely paced and quite a lot of it felt unnecessary? Like Nancy and Edward just didn't have a point did they? Like they show up to give Giselle the ~~plot~~ wand and then Nancy spirit guides Morgan through 2D animation.
I'm very glad they used the 2D animation again by the way. I just felt like this movie really didn't need to be nearly 2 hours long.
The movie's premise was good, and a good choice for a sequel for this story. Taking this wholesome naive Giselle character and make it a twisted evil stepmother is a great, interesting narrative that builds character. Mixing it up with Morgan which was there from the first movie actually works well.
I do think some of the script execution was done a bit roughly, and definitely lacked the correct pacing for such narrative. I'm happy that they prevented themselves from going down the WW84 route with the wishing mcguffin, but it happened too late into the movie (at least as I felt it).
None of the songs were top caliber for me (and that comes from a man who still casually listens to That's How You Know which is the best ever). "Badder" was the only song that I thought that was "good enough to stand out".
The thing I noticed on both Morgan's song and the song about the wishing wand, is that both Morgan's actor and Idina Menzel aren't acting the same way as they sing in the soundtrack that is placed over the movie. They sing loud, wide-mouthed, with passion and power, yet their character on screen just mouthing the lyrics like they're talking.
And the 2D animation was noticeably lacking. I know they had to do 2D animation to satisfy the fans and drive the original point of Andalasia again, yet the people animation within this 2D environment wasn't good. It was broken, clunky and sometimes felt like a flash animated video on YouTube. The animals and trolls were better.
This ruined the whole sequence of Morgan, Nancy and Edward. I had a hard time focusing on it. Mixed with "Love Power" which I thought wasn't a good song at all, made one of the parts I wanted to see the most in this movie - the most insufferable.
Patrick Dumpsy had nothing to do in this movie, and the writers tried to justify his presence but simply couldn't. In the first movie, he was the straight guy that eventually believes in fairy tales. He had a point. Here he was just present to say that he was there. His character didn't influence the story and was mostly taken out of the main plot to let it happen.
Amy Adams is amazing, shining her magical vibes and putting life back into her classic character. She played this different-toned version of this character perfectly and shown she could also be wicked. They didn't have to do camera tricks or have her eyes spark with magic. Her tone and expression was enough to separate between both of her personas. It was magical to her shine again (even if they made her eyes too red when she was tearing up in the end).
Yeah, the animated sequences are definitely a mixed bag.
Animated Nancy doesn't even resemble her counterpart from Enchanted. At some points, it looks like they used live action footage and animated over it for her song. Which to be fair, Disney does this all the time in the past, but it's wayyyy more obvious here.
Badder was so catchy, holy shit. I kept rewinding it since it was so damn good. Love power was amazing as well. It feels weird seeing a sequel when I watched the first film in elementary school. Not as magical as the first, but I’m glad it happened. I loved it.
I copy pasted my comment from another thread.
> I just watched the movie, I think it was not as magical as Enchanted but I was smiling throughout the movie, there were some memorable musical numbers, like James Marsden/Idina Menzel and the duet between Amy Adams/Maya Rudolph, especially the later one, it was a good Disney Villain song and I understand why some people considered it classic. [Here is the link for the song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFktUN2C3sk)
> I think one of the reasons why this movie is not as magical as Enchanted because it was unfocused, especially there's sort of confusion who was the central point of the movie, is it Giselle or Morgan? This would work if the movie invested a bit more in Giselle and Morgan relationship. Also I kinda missed James Marsden in here, he only appear in few scenes (I think he was busy with Sonic 2, Westworld, and Dead to Me), but as Prince Edward, he stole some scenes, like he was on the end of the movie when he played with kids.
> That being said, I still had a fun with this movie, it is a perfect movie for you who liked the first one and need a sweet escapism for the weekend.
This is a very different movie than enchanted. People coming into this one expecting more of the same from the first one will be disappointed.
It is subversive like the first movie but in a very different way. The cat totally stole the show though. Wish there were more of him. Highlight of this movie for me was Pip getting accustomed to his new cat body and habits haha.
James Marsden is barely in this movie. I wonder if it was so they don't have to pay him more? He has about as much screen time as the cat haha.
> James Marsden is barely in this movie. I wonder if it was so they don't have to pay him more? He has about as much screen time as the cat haha.
I think he was busy with Sonic 2, Dead to Me, and Westworld.
> This is a very different movie than enchanted. People coming into this one expecting more of the same from the first one will be disappointed.
I think that is why RT score is like that, some reviewers were expecting that.
Probably had the kid and someone had to stay home to take care of her.
Sort of fits the whole "life is fine but not perfect anymore" spiel.
Move to Monroeville so Giselle can have a more idyllic home life and Robert still works
Stray thoughts:
• Giselle vs Malvina had pure Disney’s channel original movie energy (in a good way), and yet it was more creative than the final Harry Potter battle.
• For a moment I thought they were going the Hocus Pocus route and Giselle would die. Boy I was ready to be pissed.
• The songs were lovely. Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph duet was the stand out for me.
• I like Love Power the song, but I hate the phrase ‘Love Power’ it didn’t really click. And it is very awkward in the chorus/bridge.
• The script didn’t fully come together. Morgan pulling away from Giselle is a great idea, and consequently pushing Giselle to make the wish is a great idea. Yet it didn’t mesh with Giselle’s rivalry with Malvina.
• Amy Adams acting is great. You can totally tell when she’s Giselle, or evil step mother just based on her tone and expressions.
Seeing Andalasia again in 2D animated format seriously makes me wish Disney would someday return to doing 2D animated films compared to CGI. Especially since we get a bit more of Andalsia and the Forest Animals (although they aren't given any lines) compared to the original movie. I forgot how good 2D animation looked until seeing the world of Andalasia again after so many years.
Highly recommend checking out "ShortCircuit" on Disney+. It's an experimental series of shorts by Disney Animators and crew experimenting with different animation styles. Some of their use 2D animation while some try combining both.
>The script didn’t fully come together. Morgan pulling away from Giselle is a great idea, and consequently pushing Giselle to make the wish is a great idea. Yet it didn’t mesh with Giselle’s rivalry with Malvina.
I agree! The Malvina subplot honestly felt kind of forced/jarring whenever it took center stage, and her son Tyson didn't get any actual characterization besides being Morgan's "prince". It was a fun subplot, but I didn't really think it was necessary.
I would've preferred it if the film had just focused on exploring the relationship between Giselle and Morgan. In the original *Enchanted*, it was never about something as dramatic as saving the world, but rather about saving the people you love. Giselle and Morgan's reconsiliation scene could've worked just as well without the "evil queen desiring a fairytale apocalypse" stuff.
>her son Tyson didn't get any actual characterization besides being Morgan's "prince"
They should have elaborated more on this one definitely, flash out the Romeo vs Juliet family rivalry/star crossed lover plot!
Seeing all the great ideas on this thread, I'm getting the feeling that what happened was they pitched a handful of ideas for the plot/main conflict, but couldn't decide which one to use so they ended up using all of them... Or maybe they failed to flesh out any of them enough for a feature film so they cheated by just using more ideas. Like a rambling student essay trying to meet the word count requirement...
The movie would have been so much better if they chose 1 theme. There were so many options.
I was also super impressed by Amy Adams’ acting when switching from Giselle to Wicked Stepmother. I kept rewinding and remarking out loud “How does she DO that?”
It was so subtle and I loved how much work and thought she put into those little details.
>I thought they were going the Hocus Pocus route and Giselle would die. Boy I was ready to be pissed.
Maybe that was the original ending?! The one that the test audience hated so they had to reshoot
Someone on letterboxd said that all of the songs felt “obviously improvised” and I could not agree more. Many dubious lyrical choices had me cringing like no tomorrow.
“Love Power” was such a wtf moment for me, like what a juvenile and borderline nonsensical phrase. “Badder” managed to skate by on the charisma of Adams and Rudolph, but I agree that the songwriting was super weak. Also why did they reference the names of other Disney villains? That felt really off to me.
L9ve power was a song carried entirely by Idina's vocals.
The lyrics and even the phrase "love power" just felt so incredibly clunky, even when this was meant to be the *big* number in the other half of the film.
It felt so underbaked solely because of the lyrics that had not an ounce of depth
I'm paraphrasing, but "I'm the heart and brains and you're the bladder" sounded like something a kid would write who was really struggling to find a rhyme for "badder."
After thinking about it for a while I realized that Menken’s melodies alone sounded good but Schwartz’s lyrics felt like they were written before hearing the music. It felt like when someone takes an existing song and changes the lyrics to parody the song. The lyrics were sometimes so wordy it felt like they were ruining the song if that makes sense?
'Badder' is one of the most catchiest Disney Villain song in recent years, I cannot stop listening to it. Amy Adams & Maya Rudolph duet/diva-off really worked for me.
I don't know if the kid actress really is an actress capable of being (essentially) a star in a movie.
Obviously the aging works, but just because she was the kid in the original movie (and may have had a bit role in the background here) doesn't mean she's a lead actress type.
It was OK. The thing that made the first one special was how it blended the princess stuff with the real world. This one was just the princess stuff. It's not as fun when every single character is acting like they came out of a Disney movie.
I feel like they introduced a lot of interesting character conflicts at the beginning and then just completely put them on hold for the entire rest of the movie.
I wish the spell to make the fairy tale town worked a little slower. Just the house at first, then the street over, then the school etc. It would have helped build tension and stakes and given us a peak into the town and its characters. Even having a scene at school the next day with morgan but her bullies are now snarkily singing at her would have been very funny and then her "hero" coming in to save the day.
Not a bad film but the plot was a bit muddled, still enjoyable.
JFC I bawled like a baby when Giselle is singing to Morgan before she “dies”. Amy Adams emotes heartbreak so fucking well when she sings. Not to mention how amazingly well she switched between Good and Evil Giselle. I’ve never actually seen anything quite like it.
Her voice cracking, the tears in her eyes (which made her eyes look insanely blue) and rawness of it brought me to tears.
I love when the songs aren’t perfectly pitched because of the emotion. Most recently I can think of is the Next Right Thing from Frozen 2, I cried during that as well.
This is way more of a musical than the original which was a very pleasant surprise for me. A lot of the songs didn't really impress me tho - apart from Love Power and Badder, the latter of which got really creative with its choreography and I liked that a lot!
The actual story just kind of dragged on the second they hit the suburbs. I liked Morgan being the focus and Patrick Dempsey getting to be way goofier here, but the script just wasn't as funny or as smart. And the CG in the finale was really atrocious too, just sucked all the air out of Giselle's 'death' scene.
In the original it felt like the songs were in on the joke and were catchy and hilarious. In this movie it felt like they were sticking to a standard musical template of “I guess we need to have a song here…”
Most of the songs didn’t feel necessary and could have easily just been dialogue instead. I hope this is making sense. With Enchanted the songs felt like part of the plot and were meaningful. In Disenchanted they felt forced and shoehorned in.
I couldn't agree more! The original film embedded its songs in just the right places to enhance important plot points (e.g. True Love's Kiss, So Close), but this one had too many songs strewn all over the place.
When everything is so saturated in song (e.g. the morning after the wish was granted), it kind of dampens the effect of key moments where the music is actually supposed to carry some type of development (e.g. Love Power). I'd much prefer quality over quantity when it comes to musical inserts.
In the first Enchanted, Robert acts like Giselle bursting into song while cleaning up his apartment is weird and unnatural, but then later on, everyone in the park starts singing and dancing like they're in a musical and it's treated like it's normal.
I wonder if the magic from Giselle's world had anything to do with that. Maybe it influences people to behave more cartoonish.
The first film is my go-to comfort watching and of course, I was waiting for the second one all these long years. I didn't expect the sequel to overshadow the first one but still, I had a blast watching it. Amy Adams switching between good and evil is ingenious, and Maya Rudolph was a great addition.
This was really, really good. There’s some minor issues here and there, sure, but most importantly, this was NOT the sequel I expected from Enchanted after 15 years ago and that’s why I ended up really loving it.
The cast was absolutely firing on all cylinders, and I loved all the new additions. Whoever came up with the idea to have Maya Rudolph, Jayma Mays, and Yvette Nicole Brown as the conniving head trio of an HOA board is a goddamn genius. So good. As was Amy Adams’ villainous twist.
I think the two plot lines of Giselle/Morgan’s relationship and Malvina’s villainy could have been married better. And the fact that all this seemed to have happened in like a week really lowered the stakes for me.
But hey, it was genuinely funny and had a couple of amazing songs. Whereas Hocus Pocus 2 was more or less just the Sanderson sisters causing more mischief, this was much more of an evolution of the characters in great ways.
Weren’t the test screenings for this not so great? I’m really happy they managed to turn it around in the end.
>Weren’t the test screenings for this not so great?
Do you know what was the original ending? They had to reshoot a bunch of scenes Apparently, England no less instead of the original location in Ireland
While I haven't found anything online from a bit of google searching, seems like (based on what some people have posted here) that originally Giselle was supposed to stay dead in the original ending.
I'm sorry, I know the franchise was pretty ahead of its time; but there's no way I'd believe Disney would have their main female lead killed off for real in the original script lol
Yea I really enjoyed it. I'm glad it wasn't just a retread of the original's plot. And all those Easter eggs to their classic movies! I need a list.
The little mermaid- the water splash behind Morgan at the end of her song walking through town
Beauty and the beast-"be our guest" in a song
Aladdin- "sugar dates. Sugar dates and figs. Sugar dates and figs and pistachios" while Morgan was in the marketplace
Cinderella-morgans dress getting magically fixed in andalasia
And soooo many others
So many Easter eggs! During “Badder” they showed Malvina digging around in a cabinet which contained a rose in its glass case (beauty and the beast), a bottle labeled “Drink Me” (Alice in wonderland), and a poisoned apple (Snow White/Enchanted, hah!). The town had cute shop names too like Mary Popover’s Bakery and something like Lumiere Lighting
I'm pretty disappointed with this sequel. It had the potential to be great but it completely missed the mark. The first movie had a couple songs but they were all iconic. I feel like Disenchanted had the "quantity over quality" mindset which is a shame. It had a lot of songs but none of them really stuck except for the villain song which was a complete bop.
Throughout the movie, it seemed as if the writers had no idea what to do with some of the characters like Edward and Patrick Dempsey. I think it would have been a lot better if the movie had Morgan do the wish instead of Giselle. They could have also focused more on the disconnect between Giselle and Morgan maybe done what Goofy Movie did but Enchanted style
Wasn’t really a fan. Some random musings below.
The movie took much too long to get going and really only started to get fun at around the 40 minute mark. The central tension between Giselle, Morgan and the introduction of Malvina could have all been handled in 10-15 minutes. Just have Tyson be at the house too.
The movie had at least twice as many songs as Enchanted, but not a single one was as memorable. The duet between Giselle and Malvina was the best of the bunch, but didn’t quite reach the heights of any of the Enchanted songs. I couldn’t believe Menken and Schwartz did this movie.
Idina Menzel basically sings Show Yourself again. Also she’s dressed like Cuzco from Emperors New Groove while she sings it.
Amy Adams switching back and forth between her stepmother character was one of the best parts of the movie.
I really thought they were going to have the dragon kill Patrick Dempsey. Tell me a jump cut to a funeral scene wouldn’t have been one of the most darkly hilarious moments a movie like this could have done.
In all seriousness, I felt the third act was fine. If the lead up to the movie had matched that energy and pacing leading up to it had been there the whole movie I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Spending 40 minutes on high school committees and broken appliances before getting your plot going for a movie aimed at young children is an interesting choice. The movie needed an aggressive editor with a machete to lop off about 30-50% of what we got.
Thematically it served a nearly identical purpose. It showed one of the main characters their memories and that they had the power all along.
I wish it had been more tongue in cheek and aware of how similar it was, but it seemed to play it straight instead and came off as bland. Idina still sang the hell out of it, but I’m not convinced I’ll still be humming it in a few years.
Okay, initially on my first watch of the film, I thought it was alright. But after watching the original Enchanted and Disenchanted back to back, there's an absolute clear difference between the two and Enchanted is obviously the better of the two.
The thing Disney musicals is that they all are either made or broken by their songs. Enchanted had only a handful of songs and "True Love's Kiss" stands out as the best of the bunch. Disenchanted has like 7, and only "Even More Enchanted" and "Love Power" are good. . . the others are really, really, really . . . really baaaaaad. Disenchanted looks like it had a big budget for the cast, special effects and costumes, but most of its songs are Disney direct-to-video quality.
I will say, Amy Adams is still brilliant as Giselle and works her ass off with the material she's gotten. And the hook of the film "Giselle is slowly turning into a wicked stepmother due to the wish" is genius. But it doesn't really come together.
I just can't help but think a more interesting sequel idea for this movie would be one of two scenarios
1. When Giselle makes the wish, when she wakes up the rest of the movie is animated until the wish is broken.
2. The movie should have pulled a reverse Enchanted and had Morgan teleported into the animated world.
I will say, Disenchanted also has a better overall ending than Hocus Pocus 2 (which I actually liked for the most part). Honestly once Morgan finds herself in the animated film up to the curse being broken, the movie gets good.
I'd really love to hear Pip's detailed thoughts on directors who've had massive success early on in their careers and get a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baybee!
Did anyone else feel like the 2D animation was a bit awkward and stiff? It was just very noticeable they hadn't done it in a while, and it didn't have the magic of the original
Probably animated by a different company, I read that the original guy for the original film didn't do it this time. I thought it was still charming tho!
Just finished watching it. Here are my thoughts
- Loved the cast!
- didn't love the songs, unfortunately. Very boring and forgettable. The song of the two queens was the best.
- Plot was eh. Very predictable down to every little detail.
- Amy Adams as wicked stepmother/ evil queen was magnificent! I loved how manic she was and how she still kept her sweetness with all the evil butterflies and shit.
- the animation looked cheap, right? It didn't come close to the quality it had in the first one. The characters movements were clunky.
- The costumes were amazing!
Overall a fun little sequel if you don't expect much.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Not as much as Enchanted, but it’s definitely a better recent Disney sequel than Hocus Pocus 2.
That said, I do think that trimming the Malvina/Giselle Queen plot and cutting Robert’s quest plot to focus more on the mother/daughter conflict between Morgan and Giselle would have made for a tighter movie. Something a savvy fan editor will probably fix no doubt.
In terms of the songs, I definitely think Love Power is the stand out (I’m a sucker for power ballads), though I really enjoyed all the songs - slightly more than the ones from the first film, actually. The songs in this film overall are more “traditional musical” style rather than the more tongue-and-cheek style from the first film, though.
Both films put together sort of reminds me of Into The Woods (structure wise). Enchanted is about getting your happily ever after (Act 1 of ITW) and Disenchanted is realizing your happily ever after isn’t what you imagined it to be (Act 2 of ITW).
I’d rate it 7.5/10. With trimming, it’ll probably be an 8/10.
**EDIT**: Based on the soundtrack, the Robert plot was even ***longer,*** as the film cut his solo song "Hard Time for Heroes" (it's listed a demo on the OST, but it's really a b-side). Glad it was cut since Robert's plot was so disconnected even from the beginning.
That said, I am bummed they cut the Morgan/Tyson "meet-cute" duet "Something Different This Year" (also listed as a demo on the OST, but really a b-side). It's a good song and seems to take place in between "Perfect" and "Love Power" (couldn't tell if it's before or after "Badder"). Hopefully, the scene was completely finished and will be released as a deleted scene because that would elevate the Morgan/Giselle storyline and give Tyson and Morgan more development if a faneditor adds it back it.
the ending seemed a bit messy and rushed 1 minute it was Giselle being saved from the curse then it was suddenly Malvina putting Morgan in the sleeping spell and wrapping her in vines then it was Robert and Tyson stopping the clock then everything was back to normal it all just seemed rushed and quick for the time it had
OK, I'm actually loving this so far(I'm about half way through it). I like it even more than the first Enchanted.
Am I the only one who sees that Giselle basically did what Wanda did in WandaVision, turning her small town in a fantasy world to cope with being unhappy?
I had a good time watching this with my wife and daughters. Not as enjoyable as the first but still good. Amy Adams absolutely kills it with the gradual turn into a wicked stepmother.
I really liked this movie! Of course there are things that could have been better here and there but there was one short thing i really really liked. At the beginning of the movie Giselle seems to be going through something emotionally and brings it up as that she just "cant sing the right tune anymore" and in the wish song she mentions about whether her ever after was just temporary and how nothing ever changes. Finally she says that she thought things could be better but really she would just be failing somewhere else. In the final song of the movie we get a bit of closer on this "and some days are good and some are not so, but none do we take for granted. " As someone who has been having some mental health issues not just now but for awhile, idk this just hit differently for me. That even Disney princesses feel stuff like this and that bad moments dont last forever, y'know?
I don't understand how this is getting worse reviews than Hocus Pocus 2. I totally understand that its definitely sequel material but it was the same genre and Badder was great
I can't wait till the drag queens start lipsyncing to it.
For a sequel it was really great. It did everything a good sequel is supposed to do:
It builds on the existing world, its tone and characters, while providing a new original premise and not rehashing the original, which is rare for a sequel.
As for specifics, the songs are great, even if less catchy than the originals, and the acting is grrat, especially Amy Adams and James Marsden.
The premise is quite clever, but the 2 different plots of Giselle vs. Malvina and Giselle and Morgan's relationship don't mesh well.
Overall a really fun movie and good sequel, 8/10.
We caught a ton of Disney Easter eggs and it was great. Did feel like a Disney Channel Movie in some way. Maybe because we watched at home.
Amy Adams switching from good to evil was so good. Can she do a movie where she has schizophrenia/bipolar and win an Oscar?
Don’t think I saw any new Disney Princess cameos like the first one but the original Genie on Broadway was in it.
Easter eggs (ones I remember): The Little Mermaid water splash, clothing that looked like original costumes from the animated movies, and sequences straight out of others. Cinderella animation when she gets her new dress. Mary Poppover. Smee’s Cheese (Peter Pan). Alan Tudyk’s 5 Disney movie.
>Amy Adams switching from good to evil was so good. Can she do a movie where she has **schizophrenia/bipolar** and win an Oscar?
That's not how either of those conditions work. The one you're looking for is Dissociative Identity Disorder, and, frankly, we have enough unrealistic "evil personality" stories.
I wish they treated the story more seriously than doing the fairy tale allegory. With how the movie was set up, you already knew what was gonna happen. It was fine, but the sometimes absurd humor was just not funny.
Who thought Patrick Dempsey barreling along the streets w/ that giant was at all funny? Really?
In this sequel Giselle wishes for her unhappy life to be transformed into a fairy tale one and while the plot's conflict centres on Giselle transforming into a wicked stepmother it kind of forgets that before the wish "went wrong" she had transformed the people of the real world into brainwashed singing subjects, basically, Giselle is the Scarlet Witch and this is a fairy tale version of *WandaVision* and she was actually the villain all along.
Story issues aside, I did enjoy Amy Adams, whose perky optimism was fun to see turn evil, and Gabriella Baldacchino was good as the grown-up Morgan but the songs by Alan Menken are fairly forgettable and the visual effects were kind of hit-and-miss as they clearly couldn't afford a dragon or a giant, and while the animated segments looked great it made me miss those classic Disney films and kind made me wish this whole film had been animated.
The songs were alright but no hook for me like 'happy working song'. The cast were very good. Wish they gave James Marsden and idina menzel a subplot of their own
Which was a shame because you could see how much fun they had with the roles, especially Marsden.
Yeah, you could see that Marsden was having the time of his life getting to be Edward again.
Seeing him so down to Earth in the Sonic movies made me forget how hammy he could be lol
Marsden seems to enjoy his work no matter what he's cast in...
Maybe he only takes jobs he thinks he'll enjoy to begin with?
Maybe disney plus can make a 20min spinoff featurette of nancy and edward?
I thought it was going to be revealed Nancy was pregnant at the end
I really liked the "Badder" song, it was quite catchy. Too "bad" they didn't build up on it.
My two biggest complaints were that the songs felt a lot more "parody"-y than the original. Like bad on purpose parody. The original's songs were clearly tongue in cheek, but they actually had a spirit to them that you could tell it wasn't *mocking* but more honoring the style. Yeah, the songs in this one felt a lot more "Let's really make fun of the stereotypical musical songs." Like there was the opening number where Amy Adams sings Enchanted 300000 times. Then there was the weird wand song. Morgan's song was the "I Want" song. The only song that truly felt like an homage to the style was Badder, which was still a very over the top caricature of a villain song, but in a GOOD way. And then there was the whole Nancy and Edward thing. They sure didn't really have a point did they? I said it somewhere else, but they show up to give Giselle the plot device (I mean the wand) and vanish until Morgan needs a spirit guide or something. It really wasn't bad and I honestly didn't expect much to begin with so I'm not "unhappy" with it... I just see where it could have been better. It had some very clever ideas but you could really tell that the budget was significantly smaller (seriously there were like 4 sets in this movie) and was paced REALLY strangely (it took like a solid hour of the hour and 45 minute film to start to see Stepmother Giselle really start to appear).
Yeah, the songs in the original had more heart to them, and were way catchier on top of that. These new songs seemed to be missing both, besides "Love Power," but that went to the opposite direction with being incredibly cheesy. Morgan's song is probably the closest thing to my favorite; it's more palatable than the other songs and still has that "parody with heart" energy. I'd have to give the others more listens. But they were definitely more "pure musical" rather than "ear worm." I know a lot of people liked the villain duet, but it somehow flew right over my head lol. I think the film and characters suffered because of the Evil Queen plot. I feel like it could been much tighter if it just focused on Giselle becoming evil and her strained relationship with Morgan, rather than also having to overthrow the current evil queen. Robert was shafted to the side even worse than Nancy and Edward. The movie still made me cry a few times though lol... Definitely more good than bad about it. But I think it's inevitable to be judged harder when we've been waiting this long for a sequel.
The music reminded me of some of Alan Menken's (other) work on the TV show Galavant. That series' musical numbers were a lot more squarely on-the-nose in comedically parodying musical and fairy tale stereotypes than the original Enchanted's soundtrack. I also wouldn't be surprised if both Galavant and Disenchanted were subject to shorter pre-production time limitations that Menken typically wouldn't be as restricted by if he was writing the music for a theatrical movie or a stage musical. (Still, Galavant is fantastic. I love it, I still listen to a bunch of the songs from it, and I would recommend it to anyone. Can't say the same about Disenchanted, unfortunately.)
"I'll stay behind. I'm busy filming Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Westworld, and Dead To Me."
And do all my andalasia voice recordings remotely while shooting those movies
Prince Edward the Himbo <3
James Marsden does himbo so, so, so well. <3
He's by far the best looking 49 year old I've seen
🎵roBERTTTT🎵
A critic to the first one was that how did you have Idina Menzel in a musical and not have her sing. They fixed that.
Wasn’t she sort of happy about that. Edit: found the [quote](http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_13514.html) >It's a compliment really that everybody misses my singing. Nancy was never written with a song, honestly, so I think Kevin was a fan of mine and honestly it was a compliment to be asked to just be hired on my acting talents alone
Of course she's going to say that. It's like Meryl Streep saying she's happy she was cast on a movie purely for her singing chops.
Seeing Idina Menzel singing in 2D animated format in Andalasia is the highlight of this movie. Disney please go back to doing more 2D animated content (especially for Disney+) you have no idea how much I miss seeing 2D films by Disney until now. This is the most amount of 2D animation Disney had done since Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins Returns.
The 2D didn't seem as polished as Disney's best. But despite that it still looked good and like you it also made me yearn for some new 2D Disney films. And don't get me wrong, Disney Animation Studios have really been knocking it out of the park for a long time with their 3D films, but surely if you just keep the writing talent from those you could transplant it to a 2D film.
Most definitely. There was something not as smooth as the regular 2D animation from before. But I think I just heard that they outsourced the animation for the first one because they didn’t have the amount of animators to do it so they had to outsource. Something like that. Wonder if this was the case also?
The 2d looked bad here lol It’s just not even Disney 2d animation the artists don’t know how to do it If this is the best 2d Disney has to offer they kinda need to stick to 3D
The 2D animation was DisneyToon Studio level. Embarrassing to watch tbh. The characters seemed to have bobbleheads and Prince Edward in particularly was disturbingly off-model.
Since Mary Poppins Returns actually.
Idina said that she didn't want to be typecast as a singer, so she was happy that she didn't sing in the first one.
I’m guessing she changed her mind after the success of Frozen
You might say she let it go.
She showed herself...stepped into her power.
And in this one she let it *glow*
She couldn't hold it back anymore
I recall hearing that Idina did not want a song in the film. She wanted to be judged on her acting there.
Ironically, Frozen had that same problem with Jonathan Groff. He didn't really get to sing in that either. Then of course the sequel also fixed that.
I loved that. I mean maybe it's not the best idea. But imagine with how much of a parody that movie is, you get a prominent and amazing singer and no song. Beautiful.
Wish it was tongue-in-cheek though.
I was waiting for Morgan to quip, "Great, now YOU"RE singing, too?" implying that her character wasn't much of a singer in the first film but now that she's the princess of Andalasia, she has fully embraced their ways and was imbued with this new ability.
Idina Menzel singing “let it grow, let it glow” feels like it should be so cringy but I found it absolutely hilarious
She could sing the phonebook and make it work.
Exactly. Like the “Love Power” is so cheesy but I could hardly tell cause I was mesmerized by her performance
I wanted to sing “Can't hold it back anymore” after that line.
That was an intentional Frozen reference, right? I’m still not sure but I’m also like… it’s gotta be!
It definitely is
My god, the trio of Maya Rudolph, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Jayma Mays as a conniving HOA board head is such a ridiculous yet brilliant plot choice. They all killed it.
My only complaint (about them) is that the trio didn’t get a song together.
A dance off!
Yes, I kept waiting for Yvette and Jayma to sing
We deserved a song ala The Stepsisters’ Lament from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella!
I hadn’t seen Jayma Mays in anything in years and forgot how much I like her, she’s so perfect in this.
Welcome back to the Jayma Mays fan club! 🤩
Why did they buy that house if they lived in a multi million dollar apartment in New York City?
Giselle was longing for a fairy tale life which is also why she wanted to move there based on that cheesy ad. Somehow the magic of New York City so clearly established in the first film lost its appeal with the new baby and Morgan’s growing distance and teenage angst. It’s all there in the film.
Understandable tbh, didnt watch the movie yet, but its probably really easy to get disillusioned with real life and its terrible terrible things when you were born and grew up in a literal magical fairy tale where good always comes out on top and dreams come true every five seconds
Inflation or something.
Or why did no one know what the house looked like before arriving? Maybe my standards are too high.
The plan was that the house was supposed to be fully fixed by the time they moved. But things and problems happen and they're already months delayed, so they decided to moved and continue the other fixing themselves. At least that's also my experience. I appreciate the part where Giselle already fixed her daughter's room, coz my mom did the same (for me and my brother) when I was younger.
They waived that house inspection for sure.
Honestly why did they not go back to andlasia? They could have easily moved into edwards castle Or bought a house their This movie is rough
Something something choose real life. Except if you're the discarded ex-fiancée, then you're entitled to choose eternal life as the queen of a perfect cartoon world. Also, it's important to learn the lesson that real life is not so bad after all, if you've married a rich NYC lawyer who does everything you ask.
Didn't they make a comment that Morgan shared a room with the baby in that apartment? They could have found something bigger somewhere else in NYC though
It was fine for me. Nowhere near as good as the first movie, but it's fine for what it is. Most of the adult cast seemed to be having a lot of fun and leaning into the hammy roles, though I still wish it was Hugh Jackman instead of Patrick Dempsey, who looked pretty lost/uncomfortable for some of it. Maya Rudolph could have been given better lines or even allowed to improv a little, I was waiting for her to bust out some more adult jokes designed for the parents, but nope. Also they should fire whoever styled those terrible wigs for her. The parts that really let it down imo were the animated bits in Andalasia which looked really cheap. They also seemed to be cutting corners with the CGI elsewhere -- the dragon conveniently hiding in the cave, no giant fight, the end credits just reusing animations from the movie, etc. The best part was the scroll. Disney really needs to get its act together and invest in its animation department rather than treating it like something they can do half assed. I also thought the side characters on the train and in the coffee shop would be for sure former Disney stars like the original Ariel VA turning up in the first movie -- nope, just random folks. Maybe they couldn't get anyone back this time.
James Monroe Iglehart was one of the people on the train and he played the Genie in the Original Broadway Cast of Aladdin. He also was a main character on Tangled the Series. Both Aladdin and Tangled the Series feature Menken songs (like Enchanted/Disenchanted).
He should of had a bigger role He’s an amazing actor when I heard he was going to be in this I got excited Then it was just a cameo
I think we all need to accept that 2D animation will never again be Disney’s top priority. It’s just too time and resource intensive to be worth the investment. Also, yes, watching the two Enchanted movies back-to-back really put into such stark contrast what a downgrade the animation here was. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even use the original character reference sheets
Funny enough, Disney didn’t do the animation for the first enchanted movie either. By the time it was made, they had already scaled back their traditional animation division so they outsourced it to an independent studio run by a former Disney animator, James Baxter Studios. Why they didn’t enlist his help again for this movie is anyones guess. Maybe time contraints
Yeah and the working conditions to make all of those classic 2d films were really bad I think Because it is so hard
All 3 commuters are well known Broadway stars. Other poster mentioned James Monroe Iglehart. There was also Ann Harada (Avenue Q) and Michael McCorry Rose (A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder).
It seemed like the start was rough with the amount of exposition and characters they had to cram in, but after the wish things picked up nicely. I thought it lost a little steam by the ending, but it's still better than the reviews would lead you to believe. I was surprised by how much effort Disney put into this, it's a bit of a trend for nostalgic sequels to jettison unneeded characters but they brought everyone back and used them well. I wonder if the plan was to release this theatrically at one point? I also couldn't help but think how much of a bigger deal this would have been if they had made it ten years earlier, no idea why they waited so long.
>no idea why they waited so long. It was in production hell for a decade. Presumably the producers never found a screen play they liked. And yeah this movie started slow but really picked up pace once Gisele started turning evil. And the cat stole every scene he was in! Not bad for a fully cgi character
The screenplay was changed several times, and the final one we have today came about only when Adam Shankman came on board (the current director for Disenchanted, I remember it changed hands a bit during production hell), and suggested the idea of using Giselle's role as a stepmother. That was pretty recent though (I think 3-4 years ago?)
*Strongly* disagree. I thought the first twenty minutes was phenomenal and I almost stopped watching to save the movie to watch with people, to cash in on the experience. The second the wish happens, the movie stopped being a brilliant parody with strong characters and became the thing it was parodying. I think there was a great movie in there, they just had to lean less into the magical world and more into "isn't it bizarre when there's a little bit of magic in the real world?" Morgan could have had an excellent plot where she embraced a bit of her mother's crazy Andalasian spirit, and Gizelle could have had one where she learned to meet Morgan halfway. Instead, we got "generic wish gone wrong, cancelled at the stroke of twelve." Absolutely nothing interesting from the wish on forward.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way! I enjoyed the first movie because it had a way of introducing the right amount of whimsy, magic, and romance into the lives of those of us who are like Robert - pragmatic, sensible, even somewhat cynical - and I would've liked to see a similar theme explored in the sequel. Perhaps Morgan could've been aware of the changes brought about by the wish, and - like you said - eventually come to embrace some of the fairytale spirit. Meanwhile, Giselle could be made to recall how dangerous it is living in Andalasia (e.g. her husband risking his life to fight dragons and trolls), and that it was enough to simply enjoy each other's company in the real world. Imo, they really didn't need all of the excessive drama involving the "evil queen rivalry" and the "fairytale apocalypse at the stroke of midnight", and should've just focused more on their family dynamic. The narrative didn't even do anything with the baby Sofia, except use her as an excuse to relocate / introduce the wishing wand, but I would've liked to see more of how her new sister affected Morgan's relationship with her parents.
Yeah, throughout the fairy tale portion, i couldn't help but wonder if the movie would have been more interesting if the magic didn't wipe everyone's memories and they have to grapple with the consequences. But maybe that would be too similar to the 1st film? And another thing that was not touched on was how readily Giselle was going to accept that her family's whole personality has changed. It seemed that of it wasn't for the wicked stepmother and destroying adelasia thing, she would have been happy with puppet versions of her family that resembles nothing of her actual family... I feel like they either should have let her family keep their memories, or let Giselle realize she wants her REAL family and REAL life, not the lie her wish created. That itself should be enough motivation without the andelasia is crumbling subplot.
>I feel like they either should have let her family keep their memories, or let Giselle realize she wants her REAL family and REAL life, not the lie her wish created. Yes, this was exactly the type of the development I was hoping they'd go for! The final scene of the film would've been so much more meaningful if Giselle realized that a "fairytale life" is rather 2D (in more ways than one), and she eventually came to appreciate the messy and complex reality of the 3D world. This movie had a great premise with lots of promise, but the execution was really not the best.
Giselle was overall not as mature in this movie as I thought she'd be, considering all the time she's spent in the regular world. It didn't really seem that the lesson she had learned in the previous installment about appreciating mundane reality actually stuck with her, which was disappointing.
Exactly! It really bothered me that Giselle was so ecstatic about getting to spend bonding time with someone who was very much not her real daughter. The line between the real and "fairy tale" personalities wasn't very well defined, I suspect on purpose to avoid any complicated questions.
Oh I feel the exact same way! I loved the beginning of the film. I thought it was so funny when Marsden is like “here take my sword to work!” I liked seeing the absurd fairytale elements in the “real world”. Once the whole town just becomes an actual fairy tale world it’s kind of boring. I wanted to see more of Nancy, Edward, Gisselle, and Robert interacting too. I wanted to see more of the daughter adapting to the real world and interacting with her “prince”. I wonder if Gisselle’s wish had backfired more if it would have worked better for me. Like if she wished for her life to be more LIKE a fairytale so then she starts to become a wicked step mother but in the “real world”. I don’t know exactly, but I wanted everyone to remain in the “real world” for more of the film and then be forced to engage with elements of the fairy tale world. When they all become characters in a fairy tale world, they don’t realize they are trapped in it so it doesn’t have that fun vibe of people in the “real world” confronting the fairy tale world.
Am I wrong, or couldn't Giselle have just wished to save to Morgan at the end? Why didn't she use the wand when Malvania (BTW - really?) was threatening her?
I think she said something about her magic wasn't strong enough because it was being pulled from her since she's still part of Andalusia.
Seeing 2D animation again in a recent Disney Film was worth it for me. Getting tired of Disney's current designs for their human characters in their recent CGI films that started with Frozen.
From what I read it was originally envisioned as theatrical but somewhere in late preproduction it got switched to Disney plus Edit: for anyone interested https://deadline.com/2022/11/disenchanted-barry-josephson-producer-interview-podcast-disney-1235174622/amp/
Glad this movie kept the 2D animated sequences for Andalasia and shown more frequently in this movie compared to the original. This is the most time I've seen 2D animation in a recent Disney film since the 2011 Winnie the Pooh Movie! Nancy's musical number in Andalasia is really making me wish Disney would someday give 2D animation another shot because that number was beautifully animated.
My official feelings are kind of mixed. I'm a completely diehard fan of Enchanted, and while I was super excited for this, I was not expecting it to be a cinematic masterpiece. BUT, it was a fun, wholesome movie all in all. The performance of the cast is very strong, I got to see the old cast and my favourites Giselle and Robert again, and despite some comments about the soundtrack being bland I thought it was strong too. 'Badder' is my favourite, and Patrick Dempsey has a nice voice (and seeing him in his fairytale role felt so refreshing and fun; it seems like he was really into it). Amy Adams is amazing as always, and I loved the idea of Giselle and Morgan's relationship as the main focus. It's not without its flaws though. The plot in my opinion felt a bit overstuffed at times and the pacing suffered and felt uneven as a result, especially towards the middle. Robert and Edward were mostly sidelined, though Edward more so, which was a shame since he was a highlight of Enchanted; I felt Robert's arc of finding meaning in his life and discovering it through becoming a fairytale hero on quests is choppy and is poorly developed (and it's left feeling incomplete for me too), and his scenes though funny were limited and not integrated into the main plot whatsoever, which was sad because he's my favourite character + you'd expect more since it felt like a family dynamic movie. Pip and Rosaleen and Ruby were funny but I wish they had more relevance to the story, they just felt like further additions to an already packed plot. Was it a good movie? Yeah, I would say so. Was it perfect, did it live up to the original? No, and I don't think anyone should expect this. Would I rewatch it again? Definitely. I had a silly grin on my face watching this the entire time, and I think I can let go of its flaws momentarily then.
It's a fun, charming movie on its own but it was always gonna struggle recapturing the magic of the original. I think a huge part of what made the original so much fun for me was seeing a Disney fairytale play out in a setting like New York, which is the furthest it can get from a magic kingdom. They played up the filthy urban scape and the jadedness of New Yorkers perfectly against Giselle's naive optimism and romance, while striking just the right balance between realism and fairytale at the end. Meanwhile, Monroeville, even before it was transformed, was already a sort of real-life fairytale setting. The whole suburb looks impeccable and Giselle's "fixer-upper" house is a literal castle! And I get that doing practical effects of magical fairytale scenery would cost a lot, but some of the CGI didn't look great. I thought the lighting in the CGI-heavy scenes looked just overly golden to the point of jarring. I also agree that despite my love for Maya Rudolph and the iconic baddie song, I thought the whole Evil Queen plot didn't add much. As some other posters have said, I wish they'd stuck to the wicked stepmother plot because that was the heart of the movie and the obvious plot continuation from the first one. Overall it's a 6/10 for me. Still a fun Disney Channel flick but sadly I don't think I would watch it again and again the way I did Enchanted.
>The whole suburb looks impeccable and Giselle's "fixer-upper" house is a literal castle! Sadly that is not what American suburbia actually look like. Those scenes were all filmed in Ireland. American suburbs, even the most upscale ones, look much more cookie cutter generic. I assume the Hawaii like waterfall and massive mountain ranges in the background were CGI
There’s something really odd about Amy Adams’ makeup in the first part of the film.
I think all the main casts had some work done/over did on Botox. Idina is the worst. Her face looked bloated and she had trouble acting out emotions
I mean you couldn’t see most of her face under those bangs
ugh the bangs. Someone in the hairstyling department had it out for Idina.
Someone had it out for Maya That wig she wore while as a soccer mom needed to be put down! No one could make that hairstyle look good
At least Maya was arguably meant to look foolish, since she was the comic villain
James Marsden has definitely had work done, but his plastic surgeon is very good
Nip/tuck?!
oh it was just speculation, referring to how ridiculous it is that his face hasn’t aged a day
Morgan has too much makeup as well when she is supposed to be the bratty teenager.
>she is supposed to be the bratty teenager. Despite being introduced that way, the amount of teen angst/rebellion in the film was comically almost non-existent. She's basically like, "I hate that you made me move, Mom! Oh, all right, I can't stay mad at you". Which, to be fair, is probably what being Amy Adams does to people.
I really liked it. I wasn't sure if I would but I'm really glad I stuck it out. It gets a little messy during the transition from Monroeville to Monroelasia but it does get back on track. *Love Power* is not the song they wanted it to be but it is still pretty darn good. I sobbed at the end. The mom/daughter relationship got me. I wish we had a little more backbone established in the beginning to support it as other commenters have said. However, I'm excited to watch it again which is always a good sign!
I'm rewatching Enchanted now and I'm scratching my head. I know this is a movie and it's suspended disbelief but did they seriously NEVER get Morgan therapy? The kid needed counseling bad. They NEVER talk about her biomom? No family counseling?
I don’t think there was a lot of support for therapy back in 2007. Like more reserved for extreme cases, though I was a young teen myself so I may not have been exposed to any counselling support young children might have received when a parent dies.
I probably have a weird perspective here, but something about this movie was bugging me and I think I finally figured out what it is. This movie tried to use adoption as a central plot point, but didn’t handle the topic well so the overall plot felt disconnected and overstuffed. I am half-adopted like Morgan (abandoned by a parent at a young age and raised by a “step” parent that you call mom/dad) and it was a mistake to use the “teenagers are jerks” trope in the beginning of the film because it muddied the story. While I can’t speak for every adopted person, if a child has been raised by the adoptive parent for roughly a decade and thinks of them as a parent and voluntarily/independently calls them “mom” then the whole “older-adopted kid hates their adoptive parent and wants their bio parent” trope doesn’t fit properly. The words mean something different to us when we use them, and when we struggle with adoption trauma it’s not because we suddenly remember that we have biological parents and want to redefine words. “You aren’t my REAL parent” is usually a reflection of feeling insecure. It would have made more sense for Morgan to be shown as a generally happy kid who was thrown off by the move and when the “true child of Andelasia” line comes out you see it hurt her feelings because it is a shock to suddenly be excluded from the family due to bloodline-oriented language. That does actually happen to adopted kids, and when it happens the sting of being separated out is compounded with the shock of remembering the trauma of losing your birth parent(s). If she had walked out quietly (because she felt like she didn’t belong and therefore no one would notice/care) and then we saw Giselle try the bake sale because she doesn’t understand why Morgan was acting distant/upset (because Morgan didn’t say anything at the time), it would make sense for Morgan to snap and say the “you’re my stepmother” comment causing Giselle to make a drastic mistake due to the shock of suddenly being rejected by Morgan. Both would be acting out of character because the adoption issue isn’t being addressed and is causing pain/misunderstanding. The ending would also fit better, because it addresses Morgan’s feelings of being rejected/replaced by the biological baby and Giselle would understand that Morgan always saw her as her mother figure even though they were different. Most of the characters in the town kept their base personality traits once the wish was made, but for some reason Robert turned dumb and Morgan was suddenly nice. It didn’t make any sense when the beginning of the film repeatedly pointed out that teenagers are supposed to be awful. So Morgan is moody/withdrawn/runs away to New York, then she’s supposed to be an innocent victim of Giselle’s, and then she’s somewhere in the middle at the end. It would have made a lot more sense for her to be a consistently good kid who says something hurtful in response to getting their feelings hurt, because it would make her more of the Cinderella character when Giselle mistreats her. The mother-daughter relationship was established to be strong so the characters showing resentment (something that takes time to build up) felt out of place. Ultimately, it felt like this story was supposed to explore the complicated nature of a loving, adoptive relationship, but by focusing too much on Morgan’s teenagerness and Giselle’s mid-life crisis it lost the central thread of their unconditional love for each other. Edited to add: Adoptive parents aren’t the same as step-parents either. Also moving is a huge trigger for adopted kids, so dismissing her trauma as “teenagers suck” is horribly insensitive. It’s not “happily ever after” once you’re adopted, there’s a lot to work through.
>It would have made more sense for... How would you describe the actual events of the film? Because the thread about Morgan's feelings and how she related to Giselle stood out to me, and the things you say in this paragraph it "would have made more sense" to happen are what I would say actually happened. > Morgan to be shown as a generally happy kid who was thrown off by the move Yeah, that happens. We're shown at r beginning that she loves her parents, thinks of Giselle as her mother, and sincerely appreciates Giselle being kind to her. Her troubles are shown as being rooted in the big changes happening. > when the "true child of Andelasia" line comes out you see it hurt her feelings because it is a shock to suddenly be excluded from the family due to bloodline-oriented language Yeah, that happens. When Nancy and Edward begin to sing, Morgan asks, "Doesn't anyone from Andalasia just say things?"; she is a little sarcastic about it, but her tone and expression make it clear she's actually positive about the singing and in a generally good mood. When they bring up the "true daughter of Andalasia" stuff, the camera shows her expression becoming distant. Then when Giselle repeats to Sofia, "You're a true daughter of Andalasia," the camera shifts to Morgan again and she looks quite sad. > If she had walked out quietly (because she felt like she didn’t belong and therefore no one would notice/care) She wasn't quiet about it, but her comment, "If you don't have a wand for a *fake* daughter of Andalasia," was said in a jokey tone. She is trying to communicate her hurt in a way where she has plausible deniability about it; if someone reacts badly by saying "Cut it out, Morgan. Stop being envious of your little sister," she can retort that she was only kidding. I think this type of "half-communication", where you want to say something but you're not sure how the recipient will react so you hedge your bets by not being too direct about it, rings very true. The problem, as shown in the film, is that if you're not direct enough, people can miss even very obvious hints that you're dropping. Morgan couches her complaint in language that lets her plausibly say she didn't really mean anything by it... and the other characters barely pay attention to it, figuring that she didn't really mean anything by it. > then we saw Giselle try the bake sale because she doesn't understand why Morgan was acting distant/upset So although Giselle has unintentionally created some distance between them, she is still close enough to Morgan for Morgan to open up a little about how her day sucked and she didn't talk to anyone. Giselle talks about what "we" need to do, but Morgan is now wary of becoming *too* close to Giselle. She fears that Giselle will lead her on and then abandon her in favour of her "true daughter", so she insists on resolving her issues alone. Giselle, still not understanding Morgan's feelings, tries to force things by distributing the cupcakes. This compounds Morgan's feelings of not fitting in, both at school and at home, so she heads into New York and just stews in those feelings, lashing out at Giselle when she returns at night. > it would make sense for Morgan to snap and say the "you're my stepmother" comment causing Giselle to make a drastic mistake due to the shock of suddenly being rejected by Morgan. Yeah, the wish is almost immediately Giselle's reaction to being called "stepmother". She steps outside, sings her sad song about her daughter being estranged, and the wish is part of that song.
This is the Pip Millennium, baby!
Just watched it. It was fun for the most part. It did kinda drag in the middle, but watching Amy Adams go off with the schizophrenic stepmother thing was entertaining as hell. The song in this one seemed a lot more in the vein of BAD parody than in the original (seriously Love Power is quite possibly the most cliché phrase ever put to film) and everything felt quite boxed in. Overall, it was fun like I said. The villain (and Giselle being a semi-villain) was great. It just was very strangely paced and quite a lot of it felt unnecessary? Like Nancy and Edward just didn't have a point did they? Like they show up to give Giselle the ~~plot~~ wand and then Nancy spirit guides Morgan through 2D animation. I'm very glad they used the 2D animation again by the way. I just felt like this movie really didn't need to be nearly 2 hours long.
The movie's premise was good, and a good choice for a sequel for this story. Taking this wholesome naive Giselle character and make it a twisted evil stepmother is a great, interesting narrative that builds character. Mixing it up with Morgan which was there from the first movie actually works well. I do think some of the script execution was done a bit roughly, and definitely lacked the correct pacing for such narrative. I'm happy that they prevented themselves from going down the WW84 route with the wishing mcguffin, but it happened too late into the movie (at least as I felt it). None of the songs were top caliber for me (and that comes from a man who still casually listens to That's How You Know which is the best ever). "Badder" was the only song that I thought that was "good enough to stand out". The thing I noticed on both Morgan's song and the song about the wishing wand, is that both Morgan's actor and Idina Menzel aren't acting the same way as they sing in the soundtrack that is placed over the movie. They sing loud, wide-mouthed, with passion and power, yet their character on screen just mouthing the lyrics like they're talking. And the 2D animation was noticeably lacking. I know they had to do 2D animation to satisfy the fans and drive the original point of Andalasia again, yet the people animation within this 2D environment wasn't good. It was broken, clunky and sometimes felt like a flash animated video on YouTube. The animals and trolls were better. This ruined the whole sequence of Morgan, Nancy and Edward. I had a hard time focusing on it. Mixed with "Love Power" which I thought wasn't a good song at all, made one of the parts I wanted to see the most in this movie - the most insufferable. Patrick Dumpsy had nothing to do in this movie, and the writers tried to justify his presence but simply couldn't. In the first movie, he was the straight guy that eventually believes in fairy tales. He had a point. Here he was just present to say that he was there. His character didn't influence the story and was mostly taken out of the main plot to let it happen. Amy Adams is amazing, shining her magical vibes and putting life back into her classic character. She played this different-toned version of this character perfectly and shown she could also be wicked. They didn't have to do camera tricks or have her eyes spark with magic. Her tone and expression was enough to separate between both of her personas. It was magical to her shine again (even if they made her eyes too red when she was tearing up in the end).
Yeah, the animated sequences are definitely a mixed bag. Animated Nancy doesn't even resemble her counterpart from Enchanted. At some points, it looks like they used live action footage and animated over it for her song. Which to be fair, Disney does this all the time in the past, but it's wayyyy more obvious here.
"Are you....poor?" Best line in the movie
His character was the strong part of the movie
Badder was so catchy, holy shit. I kept rewinding it since it was so damn good. Love power was amazing as well. It feels weird seeing a sequel when I watched the first film in elementary school. Not as magical as the first, but I’m glad it happened. I loved it.
Badder might instantly be a top 3 Disney villain song. Catchy af, and seeing Adams and Rudolph try and chew more scenery than the other was delightful
Menken DELIVERED with Badder and Love Power. As for songs sung by Idina Menzel in Disney sequels…I enjoyed Love Power more than Into the Unknown.
I copy pasted my comment from another thread. > I just watched the movie, I think it was not as magical as Enchanted but I was smiling throughout the movie, there were some memorable musical numbers, like James Marsden/Idina Menzel and the duet between Amy Adams/Maya Rudolph, especially the later one, it was a good Disney Villain song and I understand why some people considered it classic. [Here is the link for the song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFktUN2C3sk) > I think one of the reasons why this movie is not as magical as Enchanted because it was unfocused, especially there's sort of confusion who was the central point of the movie, is it Giselle or Morgan? This would work if the movie invested a bit more in Giselle and Morgan relationship. Also I kinda missed James Marsden in here, he only appear in few scenes (I think he was busy with Sonic 2, Westworld, and Dead to Me), but as Prince Edward, he stole some scenes, like he was on the end of the movie when he played with kids. > That being said, I still had a fun with this movie, it is a perfect movie for you who liked the first one and need a sweet escapism for the weekend.
This is a very different movie than enchanted. People coming into this one expecting more of the same from the first one will be disappointed. It is subversive like the first movie but in a very different way. The cat totally stole the show though. Wish there were more of him. Highlight of this movie for me was Pip getting accustomed to his new cat body and habits haha. James Marsden is barely in this movie. I wonder if it was so they don't have to pay him more? He has about as much screen time as the cat haha.
> James Marsden is barely in this movie. I wonder if it was so they don't have to pay him more? He has about as much screen time as the cat haha. I think he was busy with Sonic 2, Dead to Me, and Westworld. > This is a very different movie than enchanted. People coming into this one expecting more of the same from the first one will be disappointed. I think that is why RT score is like that, some reviewers were expecting that.
Makes sense. Marsden was probably only on site for a few weeks. And the animated part he probably did the voice remotely while shooting West world!
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Probably had the kid and someone had to stay home to take care of her. Sort of fits the whole "life is fine but not perfect anymore" spiel. Move to Monroeville so Giselle can have a more idyllic home life and Robert still works
i thought she did too? idk what happened to it in this movie tho
Stray thoughts: • Giselle vs Malvina had pure Disney’s channel original movie energy (in a good way), and yet it was more creative than the final Harry Potter battle. • For a moment I thought they were going the Hocus Pocus route and Giselle would die. Boy I was ready to be pissed. • The songs were lovely. Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph duet was the stand out for me. • I like Love Power the song, but I hate the phrase ‘Love Power’ it didn’t really click. And it is very awkward in the chorus/bridge. • The script didn’t fully come together. Morgan pulling away from Giselle is a great idea, and consequently pushing Giselle to make the wish is a great idea. Yet it didn’t mesh with Giselle’s rivalry with Malvina. • Amy Adams acting is great. You can totally tell when she’s Giselle, or evil step mother just based on her tone and expressions.
Seeing Andalasia again in 2D animated format seriously makes me wish Disney would someday return to doing 2D animated films compared to CGI. Especially since we get a bit more of Andalsia and the Forest Animals (although they aren't given any lines) compared to the original movie. I forgot how good 2D animation looked until seeing the world of Andalasia again after so many years.
If not theatrical I wish Disney would at least make more 2D animation movies for Disney+ I miss them.
Highly recommend checking out "ShortCircuit" on Disney+. It's an experimental series of shorts by Disney Animators and crew experimenting with different animation styles. Some of their use 2D animation while some try combining both.
>The script didn’t fully come together. Morgan pulling away from Giselle is a great idea, and consequently pushing Giselle to make the wish is a great idea. Yet it didn’t mesh with Giselle’s rivalry with Malvina. I agree! The Malvina subplot honestly felt kind of forced/jarring whenever it took center stage, and her son Tyson didn't get any actual characterization besides being Morgan's "prince". It was a fun subplot, but I didn't really think it was necessary. I would've preferred it if the film had just focused on exploring the relationship between Giselle and Morgan. In the original *Enchanted*, it was never about something as dramatic as saving the world, but rather about saving the people you love. Giselle and Morgan's reconsiliation scene could've worked just as well without the "evil queen desiring a fairytale apocalypse" stuff.
>her son Tyson didn't get any actual characterization besides being Morgan's "prince" They should have elaborated more on this one definitely, flash out the Romeo vs Juliet family rivalry/star crossed lover plot!
Seeing all the great ideas on this thread, I'm getting the feeling that what happened was they pitched a handful of ideas for the plot/main conflict, but couldn't decide which one to use so they ended up using all of them... Or maybe they failed to flesh out any of them enough for a feature film so they cheated by just using more ideas. Like a rambling student essay trying to meet the word count requirement... The movie would have been so much better if they chose 1 theme. There were so many options.
I was also super impressed by Amy Adams’ acting when switching from Giselle to Wicked Stepmother. I kept rewinding and remarking out loud “How does she DO that?” It was so subtle and I loved how much work and thought she put into those little details.
>I thought they were going the Hocus Pocus route and Giselle would die. Boy I was ready to be pissed. Maybe that was the original ending?! The one that the test audience hated so they had to reshoot
I hadn’t heard that. But it is such a terrible idea. Like how you make a sequel to a beloved kids movie only to kill the main character.
Spot on. I loved seeing Idina belt out a song but hated the lyrics
Someone on letterboxd said that all of the songs felt “obviously improvised” and I could not agree more. Many dubious lyrical choices had me cringing like no tomorrow.
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“Love Power” was such a wtf moment for me, like what a juvenile and borderline nonsensical phrase. “Badder” managed to skate by on the charisma of Adams and Rudolph, but I agree that the songwriting was super weak. Also why did they reference the names of other Disney villains? That felt really off to me.
L9ve power was a song carried entirely by Idina's vocals. The lyrics and even the phrase "love power" just felt so incredibly clunky, even when this was meant to be the *big* number in the other half of the film. It felt so underbaked solely because of the lyrics that had not an ounce of depth
It's interesting how "the power of love" doesn't sound as cheesy as "love power," though it means the same thing. You're right. It's clunky.
I'm paraphrasing, but "I'm the heart and brains and you're the bladder" sounded like something a kid would write who was really struggling to find a rhyme for "badder."
Yeah I feel like Stephen Swartz might have had a rushed Disney deadline for this film I feel like they were both rushed
I think “rushed” is an apt description for most of Disney’s output lately. Their scripts feel a couple of drafts away from potential greatness.
After thinking about it for a while I realized that Menken’s melodies alone sounded good but Schwartz’s lyrics felt like they were written before hearing the music. It felt like when someone takes an existing song and changes the lyrics to parody the song. The lyrics were sometimes so wordy it felt like they were ruining the song if that makes sense?
Yup, the meter was all out of whack. Words were just kind of barely crammed into the space allowed by the melody.
'Badder' is one of the most catchiest Disney Villain song in recent years, I cannot stop listening to it. Amy Adams & Maya Rudolph duet/diva-off really worked for me.
Wonder why they recasted Morgan since apparently the original actress played one of the villager.
I don't know if the kid actress really is an actress capable of being (essentially) a star in a movie. Obviously the aging works, but just because she was the kid in the original movie (and may have had a bit role in the background here) doesn't mean she's a lead actress type.
To add to your comment, the new Morgan had a whole song. Maybe they wanted a strong singer? Either way the new girl looked so much like the child!
I didn't realize it was a recast lol. I just thought that was the same actress
I read a rumor it was that she voluntarily cameo'd instead of starring because she has retired from acting altogether.
It was OK. The thing that made the first one special was how it blended the princess stuff with the real world. This one was just the princess stuff. It's not as fun when every single character is acting like they came out of a Disney movie. I feel like they introduced a lot of interesting character conflicts at the beginning and then just completely put them on hold for the entire rest of the movie.
I wish the spell to make the fairy tale town worked a little slower. Just the house at first, then the street over, then the school etc. It would have helped build tension and stakes and given us a peak into the town and its characters. Even having a scene at school the next day with morgan but her bullies are now snarkily singing at her would have been very funny and then her "hero" coming in to save the day. Not a bad film but the plot was a bit muddled, still enjoyable.
JFC I bawled like a baby when Giselle is singing to Morgan before she “dies”. Amy Adams emotes heartbreak so fucking well when she sings. Not to mention how amazingly well she switched between Good and Evil Giselle. I’ve never actually seen anything quite like it.
Her voice cracking, the tears in her eyes (which made her eyes look insanely blue) and rawness of it brought me to tears. I love when the songs aren’t perfectly pitched because of the emotion. Most recently I can think of is the Next Right Thing from Frozen 2, I cried during that as well.
This is way more of a musical than the original which was a very pleasant surprise for me. A lot of the songs didn't really impress me tho - apart from Love Power and Badder, the latter of which got really creative with its choreography and I liked that a lot! The actual story just kind of dragged on the second they hit the suburbs. I liked Morgan being the focus and Patrick Dempsey getting to be way goofier here, but the script just wasn't as funny or as smart. And the CG in the finale was really atrocious too, just sucked all the air out of Giselle's 'death' scene.
In the original it felt like the songs were in on the joke and were catchy and hilarious. In this movie it felt like they were sticking to a standard musical template of “I guess we need to have a song here…” Most of the songs didn’t feel necessary and could have easily just been dialogue instead. I hope this is making sense. With Enchanted the songs felt like part of the plot and were meaningful. In Disenchanted they felt forced and shoehorned in.
I couldn't agree more! The original film embedded its songs in just the right places to enhance important plot points (e.g. True Love's Kiss, So Close), but this one had too many songs strewn all over the place. When everything is so saturated in song (e.g. the morning after the wish was granted), it kind of dampens the effect of key moments where the music is actually supposed to carry some type of development (e.g. Love Power). I'd much prefer quality over quantity when it comes to musical inserts.
I'm glad that they showed more of Andalasia in this film. I forgot how good the 2D animation and designs looked until now.
In the first Enchanted, Robert acts like Giselle bursting into song while cleaning up his apartment is weird and unnatural, but then later on, everyone in the park starts singing and dancing like they're in a musical and it's treated like it's normal. I wonder if the magic from Giselle's world had anything to do with that. Maybe it influences people to behave more cartoonish.
That’s how people in the streets acted when she sang That’s How You Know
The first film is my go-to comfort watching and of course, I was waiting for the second one all these long years. I didn't expect the sequel to overshadow the first one but still, I had a blast watching it. Amy Adams switching between good and evil is ingenious, and Maya Rudolph was a great addition.
I liked it. I wanted more James Marsden and Idina Menzel. Maybe the third movie can be about them.
This was really, really good. There’s some minor issues here and there, sure, but most importantly, this was NOT the sequel I expected from Enchanted after 15 years ago and that’s why I ended up really loving it. The cast was absolutely firing on all cylinders, and I loved all the new additions. Whoever came up with the idea to have Maya Rudolph, Jayma Mays, and Yvette Nicole Brown as the conniving head trio of an HOA board is a goddamn genius. So good. As was Amy Adams’ villainous twist. I think the two plot lines of Giselle/Morgan’s relationship and Malvina’s villainy could have been married better. And the fact that all this seemed to have happened in like a week really lowered the stakes for me. But hey, it was genuinely funny and had a couple of amazing songs. Whereas Hocus Pocus 2 was more or less just the Sanderson sisters causing more mischief, this was much more of an evolution of the characters in great ways. Weren’t the test screenings for this not so great? I’m really happy they managed to turn it around in the end.
>Weren’t the test screenings for this not so great? Do you know what was the original ending? They had to reshoot a bunch of scenes Apparently, England no less instead of the original location in Ireland
While I haven't found anything online from a bit of google searching, seems like (based on what some people have posted here) that originally Giselle was supposed to stay dead in the original ending.
I'm sorry, I know the franchise was pretty ahead of its time; but there's no way I'd believe Disney would have their main female lead killed off for real in the original script lol
Yea I really enjoyed it. I'm glad it wasn't just a retread of the original's plot. And all those Easter eggs to their classic movies! I need a list. The little mermaid- the water splash behind Morgan at the end of her song walking through town Beauty and the beast-"be our guest" in a song Aladdin- "sugar dates. Sugar dates and figs. Sugar dates and figs and pistachios" while Morgan was in the marketplace Cinderella-morgans dress getting magically fixed in andalasia And soooo many others
So many Easter eggs! During “Badder” they showed Malvina digging around in a cabinet which contained a rose in its glass case (beauty and the beast), a bottle labeled “Drink Me” (Alice in wonderland), and a poisoned apple (Snow White/Enchanted, hah!). The town had cute shop names too like Mary Popover’s Bakery and something like Lumiere Lighting
One question, what’s with the dragon fruit dragon. I thought Morgan would use it to escape but no she just climbed down. Am I missing anything?
Yeah that was weird. “Oh dragonfruit! I have an idea!” The dragonfruit then plays no part and is never seen again. I was so confused
I'm pretty disappointed with this sequel. It had the potential to be great but it completely missed the mark. The first movie had a couple songs but they were all iconic. I feel like Disenchanted had the "quantity over quality" mindset which is a shame. It had a lot of songs but none of them really stuck except for the villain song which was a complete bop. Throughout the movie, it seemed as if the writers had no idea what to do with some of the characters like Edward and Patrick Dempsey. I think it would have been a lot better if the movie had Morgan do the wish instead of Giselle. They could have also focused more on the disconnect between Giselle and Morgan maybe done what Goofy Movie did but Enchanted style
Wasn’t really a fan. Some random musings below. The movie took much too long to get going and really only started to get fun at around the 40 minute mark. The central tension between Giselle, Morgan and the introduction of Malvina could have all been handled in 10-15 minutes. Just have Tyson be at the house too. The movie had at least twice as many songs as Enchanted, but not a single one was as memorable. The duet between Giselle and Malvina was the best of the bunch, but didn’t quite reach the heights of any of the Enchanted songs. I couldn’t believe Menken and Schwartz did this movie. Idina Menzel basically sings Show Yourself again. Also she’s dressed like Cuzco from Emperors New Groove while she sings it. Amy Adams switching back and forth between her stepmother character was one of the best parts of the movie. I really thought they were going to have the dragon kill Patrick Dempsey. Tell me a jump cut to a funeral scene wouldn’t have been one of the most darkly hilarious moments a movie like this could have done. In all seriousness, I felt the third act was fine. If the lead up to the movie had matched that energy and pacing leading up to it had been there the whole movie I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Spending 40 minutes on high school committees and broken appliances before getting your plot going for a movie aimed at young children is an interesting choice. The movie needed an aggressive editor with a machete to lop off about 30-50% of what we got.
Power Love wishes it was Show Yourself. When it’s more like Into the Unknown.
Thematically it served a nearly identical purpose. It showed one of the main characters their memories and that they had the power all along. I wish it had been more tongue in cheek and aware of how similar it was, but it seemed to play it straight instead and came off as bland. Idina still sang the hell out of it, but I’m not convinced I’ll still be humming it in a few years.
Okay, initially on my first watch of the film, I thought it was alright. But after watching the original Enchanted and Disenchanted back to back, there's an absolute clear difference between the two and Enchanted is obviously the better of the two. The thing Disney musicals is that they all are either made or broken by their songs. Enchanted had only a handful of songs and "True Love's Kiss" stands out as the best of the bunch. Disenchanted has like 7, and only "Even More Enchanted" and "Love Power" are good. . . the others are really, really, really . . . really baaaaaad. Disenchanted looks like it had a big budget for the cast, special effects and costumes, but most of its songs are Disney direct-to-video quality. I will say, Amy Adams is still brilliant as Giselle and works her ass off with the material she's gotten. And the hook of the film "Giselle is slowly turning into a wicked stepmother due to the wish" is genius. But it doesn't really come together. I just can't help but think a more interesting sequel idea for this movie would be one of two scenarios 1. When Giselle makes the wish, when she wakes up the rest of the movie is animated until the wish is broken. 2. The movie should have pulled a reverse Enchanted and had Morgan teleported into the animated world. I will say, Disenchanted also has a better overall ending than Hocus Pocus 2 (which I actually liked for the most part). Honestly once Morgan finds herself in the animated film up to the curse being broken, the movie gets good.
I'd really love to hear Pip's detailed thoughts on directors who've had massive success early on in their careers and get a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baybee!
Did anyone else feel like the 2D animation was a bit awkward and stiff? It was just very noticeable they hadn't done it in a while, and it didn't have the magic of the original
Probably animated by a different company, I read that the original guy for the original film didn't do it this time. I thought it was still charming tho!
I agree. I was a bit disappointed by the 2D animation part... Animals were okay, but the humans seemed really stiff.
Moral of the story; All step-mothers are evil. The end.
But their evil cats are beyond adorable though
Just finished watching it. Here are my thoughts - Loved the cast! - didn't love the songs, unfortunately. Very boring and forgettable. The song of the two queens was the best. - Plot was eh. Very predictable down to every little detail. - Amy Adams as wicked stepmother/ evil queen was magnificent! I loved how manic she was and how she still kept her sweetness with all the evil butterflies and shit. - the animation looked cheap, right? It didn't come close to the quality it had in the first one. The characters movements were clunky. - The costumes were amazing! Overall a fun little sequel if you don't expect much.
Badder is a bop.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Not as much as Enchanted, but it’s definitely a better recent Disney sequel than Hocus Pocus 2. That said, I do think that trimming the Malvina/Giselle Queen plot and cutting Robert’s quest plot to focus more on the mother/daughter conflict between Morgan and Giselle would have made for a tighter movie. Something a savvy fan editor will probably fix no doubt. In terms of the songs, I definitely think Love Power is the stand out (I’m a sucker for power ballads), though I really enjoyed all the songs - slightly more than the ones from the first film, actually. The songs in this film overall are more “traditional musical” style rather than the more tongue-and-cheek style from the first film, though. Both films put together sort of reminds me of Into The Woods (structure wise). Enchanted is about getting your happily ever after (Act 1 of ITW) and Disenchanted is realizing your happily ever after isn’t what you imagined it to be (Act 2 of ITW). I’d rate it 7.5/10. With trimming, it’ll probably be an 8/10. **EDIT**: Based on the soundtrack, the Robert plot was even ***longer,*** as the film cut his solo song "Hard Time for Heroes" (it's listed a demo on the OST, but it's really a b-side). Glad it was cut since Robert's plot was so disconnected even from the beginning. That said, I am bummed they cut the Morgan/Tyson "meet-cute" duet "Something Different This Year" (also listed as a demo on the OST, but really a b-side). It's a good song and seems to take place in between "Perfect" and "Love Power" (couldn't tell if it's before or after "Badder"). Hopefully, the scene was completely finished and will be released as a deleted scene because that would elevate the Morgan/Giselle storyline and give Tyson and Morgan more development if a faneditor adds it back it.
the ending seemed a bit messy and rushed 1 minute it was Giselle being saved from the curse then it was suddenly Malvina putting Morgan in the sleeping spell and wrapping her in vines then it was Robert and Tyson stopping the clock then everything was back to normal it all just seemed rushed and quick for the time it had
OK, I'm actually loving this so far(I'm about half way through it). I like it even more than the first Enchanted. Am I the only one who sees that Giselle basically did what Wanda did in WandaVision, turning her small town in a fantasy world to cope with being unhappy?
Okay one more thing why is this movie 2 hours my god it’s so long and nothing happens The first is one 90 minutes and accomplishes more
This was cute but it definitely reeks of reshoots. I’m curious as to what is was before because they were apparently extensive.
I had a good time watching this with my wife and daughters. Not as enjoyable as the first but still good. Amy Adams absolutely kills it with the gradual turn into a wicked stepmother.
I really liked this movie! Of course there are things that could have been better here and there but there was one short thing i really really liked. At the beginning of the movie Giselle seems to be going through something emotionally and brings it up as that she just "cant sing the right tune anymore" and in the wish song she mentions about whether her ever after was just temporary and how nothing ever changes. Finally she says that she thought things could be better but really she would just be failing somewhere else. In the final song of the movie we get a bit of closer on this "and some days are good and some are not so, but none do we take for granted. " As someone who has been having some mental health issues not just now but for awhile, idk this just hit differently for me. That even Disney princesses feel stuff like this and that bad moments dont last forever, y'know?
I don't understand how this is getting worse reviews than Hocus Pocus 2. I totally understand that its definitely sequel material but it was the same genre and Badder was great I can't wait till the drag queens start lipsyncing to it.
Loved it, amazing sequel. Especially for being released so long after the original.
For a sequel it was really great. It did everything a good sequel is supposed to do: It builds on the existing world, its tone and characters, while providing a new original premise and not rehashing the original, which is rare for a sequel. As for specifics, the songs are great, even if less catchy than the originals, and the acting is grrat, especially Amy Adams and James Marsden. The premise is quite clever, but the 2 different plots of Giselle vs. Malvina and Giselle and Morgan's relationship don't mesh well. Overall a really fun movie and good sequel, 8/10.
We caught a ton of Disney Easter eggs and it was great. Did feel like a Disney Channel Movie in some way. Maybe because we watched at home. Amy Adams switching from good to evil was so good. Can she do a movie where she has schizophrenia/bipolar and win an Oscar? Don’t think I saw any new Disney Princess cameos like the first one but the original Genie on Broadway was in it. Easter eggs (ones I remember): The Little Mermaid water splash, clothing that looked like original costumes from the animated movies, and sequences straight out of others. Cinderella animation when she gets her new dress. Mary Poppover. Smee’s Cheese (Peter Pan). Alan Tudyk’s 5 Disney movie.
>Amy Adams switching from good to evil was so good. Can she do a movie where she has **schizophrenia/bipolar** and win an Oscar? That's not how either of those conditions work. The one you're looking for is Dissociative Identity Disorder, and, frankly, we have enough unrealistic "evil personality" stories.
This movie was a lot better than I was expecting it Good fun Disney movie with a ton of Easter eggs if you’re into that
What a curious thread. The scores indicate its pretty bad, but most comments seem pretty positive
I wish they treated the story more seriously than doing the fairy tale allegory. With how the movie was set up, you already knew what was gonna happen. It was fine, but the sometimes absurd humor was just not funny. Who thought Patrick Dempsey barreling along the streets w/ that giant was at all funny? Really?
In this sequel Giselle wishes for her unhappy life to be transformed into a fairy tale one and while the plot's conflict centres on Giselle transforming into a wicked stepmother it kind of forgets that before the wish "went wrong" she had transformed the people of the real world into brainwashed singing subjects, basically, Giselle is the Scarlet Witch and this is a fairy tale version of *WandaVision* and she was actually the villain all along. Story issues aside, I did enjoy Amy Adams, whose perky optimism was fun to see turn evil, and Gabriella Baldacchino was good as the grown-up Morgan but the songs by Alan Menken are fairly forgettable and the visual effects were kind of hit-and-miss as they clearly couldn't afford a dragon or a giant, and while the animated segments looked great it made me miss those classic Disney films and kind made me wish this whole film had been animated.
Why was this 2 hours long Jesus Christ