Disenchanted Review: Amy Adams Cites Unnecessary Disney+ Sequel

Over the course of 15 years, Amy Adams’ passion for musical fairy tales hasn’t waned one bit. Unfortunately, that can’t be said of all of her co-stars. Disenchanted, the sequel to Disney’s popular Enchanted, lands on Disney+ over a decade after the first Enchanted audience.

But hey, it’s still half the time it took to make Hocus Pocus 2. Whatever’s in the water over at the Walt Disney Company, both lineups haven’t changed much, and it feels like no time has passed on the magical ticking clock of aging. But was it worth the wait?

Adams goes wide-eyed in Disenchanted, reprising her role as Andalacia princess Giselle, who stumbled through a botched portal to Manhattan and fell in love with divorce attorney and single father Robert (Patrick Dempsey) all those years ago. The sequel, which also stars recurring scene stealers James Mardsen and Idina Menzel, asks what’s happening after that happily ever after?

A lot has changed since Giselle convinced Robert that true love exists: the couple have had a baby of their own while also being daughter Morgan (played by Rachel Covey in the original film, now played by Gabriella Baldacchino). (Morgan is a moody teenager, and the best thing “Disenchanted” does is energize her aspiring protagonist.) Also, it turns out that singing doves and rats are real do Getting on nerves after a decade as a New Yorker as Giselle (Adams) is now determined to move to the suburb of Monroeville, a set eerily similar to Solvang, California and the ghost town House of Wax.

The narrating chipmunks chant that there’s “nothing that bothers or bothers you in the suburbs,” but that’s thrown out the window when Morgan moans that she’s being kidnapped and Giselle finds out it’s a little harder, friends to find when there is no magic is not involved. As a reminder that all Disney properties are connected, a disappointed and floundering Giselle decides to cast a wishing spell on Monroeville, merging it with Andalasia. What, haven’t you seen WandaVision yet?

“Disenchanted”

Disney

Local queen bee Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph) and her minions, played by Yvette Nicole Brown and Jayma Mays, transform into a witch-like trio straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale once the spell is cast. Meanwhile, Morgan falls in love with Malvina’s son while singing about “all the joys of housekeeping” in a “Cinderella”-esque montage. And sweet Giselle inevitably becomes an evil stepmother whose devious side makes for some of the film’s best jokes.

As Giselle sings about the vanity and how “liberating” it is to be a villain in an absolutely perfect duet with Malvina, the film’s subtlety holds a mirror up to us all, a mirror on the wall. What do does motherhood’s overwhelming responsibility of “having it all” and guiding family into the perfect “fairytale life” really affect our psyche?

Giselle is a woman who burns out while her husband Robert plays, more of a caricature of a textbook husband than Giselle’s princess role in the first film. Adams, Marsden and Rudolph carry the film while Dempsey is content to play the supporting arm’s candy and retires into the mounting drama.

“Disenchanted”

Screenshot/Disney

The rise of Monrolasia is irreversible once the clock strikes midnight, though Giselle desperately tries to stop time while realizing her own slippery descent into the dark side. Giselle even carts her baby Sophia over to a group of older women who “look like they’re good with kids.” Isn’t that what the suburbs do to all of us?

It’s up to Morgan, the next generation of Giselle’s magic through Pansy, to save the town and her family, and like Hocus Pocus 2, the film brings the power of the franchise to a fresh new cast. Morgan works (in cartoon form) with Prince Edward (Marsden) and Nancy (Menzel) to save the two worlds: in the end we learn that it is the power of memories that can heal a curse.

Much like its message, “Disenchanted” reminds us that every moment has the potential to bring us a happy ending, but it’s for the good and the bad that makes it more and more enchanting. Did we need a sequel to Enchanted? Not really, but it’s cute enough to cast a little escapist spell this holiday season.

Rating: C+

Disenchanted is now streaming on Disney+.

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