by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
My wish? My wish was that Disney’s Wish would be a good movie. Unfortunately, not all wishes come true…
It’s the 100th Anniversary of the Walt Disney Company. A lot of things have happened over these years, a lot of changes over the decades. But if there’s one thing the company is known for above all else it’s for their ability to churn out entertaining and heartfelt animated family films. Wish marks the 62nd animated feature to come from the studio proper, and it continues the pattern of making a musical every other year, since last year’s Strange World wasn’t one. Honestly, that’s for the best too, because that’s what audiences think of when they think of Disney animation; it’s what they crave. Unfortunately, Wish doesn’t deliver on the excitement of 100 years. In fact, it doesn’t deliver much excitement at all.
Wish takes place in Rosas, is a small island nation where, supposedly, all your hopes and dreams come true, as all the citizens live in perfect harmony. This is all possible because the King of Rosas, Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine), leads and protects his people, sheltering them from the pains of the world. Magnifico is so benevolent that he even grants the deepest desires of some of his citizens from time to time. He makes people’s wishes come true! Granted, you have to give up your wish, a part of your soul, when you turn 18 if you want to live in Magnifico’s kingdom, and you never get your wish back even if he never grants it, but that’s the price you pay to live in ignorant bliss. That is, until one teenager, Asha (Ariana DeBose), comes along with a wish that changes the entire paradigm of Rosas and Magnifico forever…
This film tries to deliver a tale of fantasy and wonderment that weaves together the magic and nostalgia of 100 years of history. Of 61 previous films. It attempts to be a meta, so that lovers of the studio can admire and feel comforted by it, while telling an original story for a whole new generation of fans. A little bit for everybody. But Wish doesn’t have the courage of its own conviction to actually deliver on this meta premise. In fact, Enchanted is by far a better meta film about Disney than Wish is. The meta takes in this flick just amount to picking out references. Look, there’s Bambi, Little John, and Peter Pan. Hey, those seven characters look and act like the seven dwarfs. Cool, I guess? But it’s not satisfying and doesn’t feel like an honest attempt at having a meta conversation about the studio, its characters, or its history.
Look, if you’re gonna try and make a meta movie to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney, lean into it. Deliver truly meta commentary on the company, its filmography, and its stereotypes. Don’t just litter the movie with a million point-at-the-screen Easter eggs.
How great would it have been if some of the citizen’s wishes transformed them into these legendary Disney characters by the movie’s end? If the part of each person’s soul that was missing, their wish, was what was needed to turn them into the people who went on to have these great stories. That Magnifico was the gatekeeper holding back all imagination, wonder, joy, and adventure. That this was the origin of Disney, in a sense. I know it’s not necessarily fair to critique a movie for what it isn’t, but when the movie tries to set itself up as one thing, and completely fails at executing that one thing, it’s hard to not to think about what could have been.
It’s not just the attempt at delivering a meta film that respects the history of this great studio that doesn’t work. It’s the narrative as a whole. Magnifico’s entire power trip is driven by some dark thing in his past, and a burnt tapestry that’s referenced multiple times, but then it’s never explained. The wishes that he does capture and hold are a part of people’s souls. It’s terrible to take these away. But we’re never told why Magnifico even needs them, or what purpose they serve in controlling his kingdom or his people. He just likes to hoard them like a dragon and… that’s it. In fact, Magnifico as a character just doesn’t make sense. I was always told that villain motivations were supposed to be important? But I guess Wish’s screenwriters never got the memo. And that’s just the issues with Magnifico! Don’t even get me started on how the big bad is defeated by… the power of song? Frankly, I don’t know what happened at the end, because the movie itself doesn’t even know what happened at the end. Nothing makes sense, and nothing is explained. You’re just forced to roll with it.
Wish is full of narrative problems, script inconsistencies, and poor dialogue that never fully explains what’s going on. Sadly, it is arguably the worst script Disney has made since the Post-Renaissance Era, and that’s saying something. There are so many plot points that don’t make sense when you think about them for more than two seconds. It’s so disappointing.
And I know some would rebuttal that this is a kid’s movie, so it doesn’t always have to work. My issue with that is, Disney has proven, time and time again, that they do know how to make this work; they’re just not making it work here. There’s a difference between a kid’s film and a family film. The best Disney films are family films that work for kids and adults alike. Wish is most assuredly not a family film. It is a kid’s film that even struggles to stitch together the most basic narrative components.
It’s not just the story or the character, either, since humor largely doesn’t work. The film is riddled with toilet humor that feels so much more in line with DreamWorks than Disney. I love Alan Tudyk so much, and his voice performance as Valentino is great, but the amount of butt jokes they give him is just ridiculous. I didn’t laugh at a single joke the entire movie. This, in and of itself, isn’t a slight against the movie. But it becomes one when I also account for the fact that my wife, my two kids (aged nine and three), and an audience full of families, only laughed maybe a handful of times throughout the entire runtime.
Even most of the songs are largely lackluster. Seriously, there are eight songs, and only two of them really felt good. “Welcome to Rosas” is a weak introductory exposition track that makes “The Family Madrigal” from Encanto feel like lyrical genius. “I’m a Star” doesn’t even know what it’s trying to be. The song is set up to be a question about how magic works, but then changes into a song about feeling confident in who you are and feeling empowering. A great message to be sure, but it doesn’t fit the narrative of the film at all. “The Happy Chicken Song” is a literal joke that you cannot take seriously, and “Knowing What I Know Now,” while having a fun tribal drum instrumental vibe, doesn’t drive home like it should. The biggest disappointment, though, is easily “This is the Thanks I Get?!” It is the first true Disney Villain song (a beloved archetype) in more than a decade since 2010’s Tangled, and it completely misses the mark. In a vacuum, the song is actually just fine. Catchy even. But in the context of the movie, that’s the problem with it. It’s a catchy pop song. In fact, it might just be the poppiest song on the soundtrack, and it doesn’t remotely match the vibe and tone the movie needed from a proper villain track. It’s not threatening or menacing — it feels like the ranting of a petulant child. While that may fit Magnifico’s vibe as a character, it doesn’t fit the vibe of the film as a whole.
So yeah, there are a lot of big issues with Wish. It doesn’t work as a tribute to the studio, the story is a muddled mess, and the songs are not great. But it isn’t an awful film by any means, just a bad one. There are still elements that lift it up and make this watchable, even if it’s not endearing.
First and foremost, DeBose and Pine are genuinely great in their vocal performances. There’s a ton of charisma pouring out of them, and they make you care so much more for these two main characters in Asha and Magnifico than the script gives you any reason to care. Additionally, there are two song that work really well, and these two voice performances carry over into those tracks too. “At All Costs” is a beautiful duet that’s narratively framed as being about protecting the wishes of Rosas. Lyrically, however, the song is rich and thematically about two people caring for, and protecting one another. This could be interpreted as friends, family, lovers, what have you. But it’s a beautiful and serene song that’s sneakily one of the best of the film. The show-stopping track, “This Wish,” is also powerful as hell. DeBose crushes it, and it’s one of the best “I Want/I Wish” songs Disney has written in years. If there was any song from this movie that had a shot at Best Original Song at the Oscars, it’s this one. It’s beautiful and inspiring, and well worth listening too.
Additionally, I really enjoyed the film’s animation. While it’s not as groundbreaking as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem from this year, it certainly pushes the boundaries beyond the traditional Disney aesthetic. This cell-shaded animation renders shadows and textures in a distinct way, and the color grading makes most of the film appear as though it was drawn with colored pencil. It makes for some visually stunning moments. While these lead vocal performances, these songs, and this animation don’t save the day, they certainly makes Wish a more tolerable experience.
Wish is quite the disappointment, and an unfortunate capstone to one of the worst years Disney has had in decades. However, with the displeasure that audiences are having with the studio lately, this might truly be the perfect way to celebrate 100 years. I’m not fully on board with the doom and gloom. Disney is arguably too big to fail. But man, I do hope things get better soon, because I want to start having fun again with the House of Mouse. Because this ain’t it.
Rating: High Side of Didn’t Like It
Wish is currently playing in theaters
You can read more from Heath Lynch, and follow him on Letterboxd