Launched in 2007, Enchanted discovered the Walt Disney studio in an unusually self-aware temper: right here was a understanding send-up of the Mouse Home’s most well-known fairy story clichés, wrapped up in one thing that was each droll parody and heartfelt homage. It made a star out of a brilliantly recreation Amy Adams and proved the comedy chops of James Marsden (who would later stretch these chops within the Anchorman sequel). In nearly each interview the forged have executed since, the query has been requested: when are you making a sequel?
Now, lastly, Disney have dutifully obliged. Whereas there’s a very slight, occasional sense of straight-to-streaming about this follow-up — it’s made completely for Disney+, versus the theatrical launch of the unique — there’s a formidable quantity of scale and ambition right here, a trustworthy retread that retains a lot of the appeal and humour of the unique, if not precisely surpassing it.
Well, it is a sequel that addresses one of many key tropes of Disney classics — specifically, the fateful ‘fortunately ever after’, and what occurs after the ever after. The movie opens — after all! — with an animated prologue, as trusty chipmunk Pip (voiced by Griffin Newman) reads from the pages of a storybook to catch us up with what’s been happening within the intervening years. Giselle and Robert (Patrick Dempsey) have since settled into life in New York, taking care of Morgan and their new child; they’re now new dad and mom, exhausted by the tempo of Manhattan life, hoping to start out a brand new life within the sleepy suburban city of ‘Monroeville’.
However all shouldn’t be properly in Monroeville: Robert is drained by the drudgery of commuting, teenager Morgan misses the power of Manhattan, and Giselle finds herself in a rivalry with the native queen bee (Maya Rudolph, whose tone is as deliciously extreme as her fringe), in addition to worrying that she is falling into the lure of being an evil stepmother. In desperation, she makes a want for slightly Andalasian magic to fall on their lives, and unintentionally casts a WandaVision-esque spell over your complete city.
There’s a good bit of appeal and heat and smarts right here.
It’s a enjoyable conceit, making certain that everybody will get a go at heightened Disneyfied lunacy (Dempsey particularly appears to take pleasure in chewing the surroundings as a wannabe heroic prince), helped by the return of Alan Menken’s gloriously toe-tapping Broadway present tunes and a few bold, Busby Berkeley-style choreography. In amongst all of it, the script finds room for witty self-awareness (“We’ll provide you with one thing very good and really last-minute that solves all of our issues,” assures Marsden’s Prince Edward), and extra affectionate nods to Disney classics (there’s a dancing broom, references to Maleficent and Cruella, and a tune that invitations you to “be our visitor”).
It’s, admittedly, not fairly as humorous or intelligent as the primary movie, lacking slightly of its fairy mud. There are prolonged plot contrivances, involving a magic reminiscence tree and an Andalasian wand, which really feel superfluous. The unnecessarily lengthy working time will go away youthful viewers feeling stressed, whereas the overreliance on CGI — culminating in a sub-Potter energy-force-field wand-off — can have the grown-ups getting twitchy, too.
But when you will get previous that, there’s a good bit of appeal and heat and smarts right here. The forged are only a pleasure to be round — Amy Adams particularly is simply as great as she was in 2007, discovering the proper steadiness between princess parody and pure sincerity, whereas additionally juggling an evil facet. And, amongst all of the goofiness, there’s a subtle understanding lurking beneath: that actual life is, in truth, extra difficult than fairy tales.
