GoCorral

Wish is Disney’s latest animation kid’s movie. I saw it with my kids over Thanksgiving weekend. The movie is supposed to be the origin story for the wishing star theme that appears in many Disney movies.

The story follows Asha, a 17 year-old who wishes to be the apprentice to Magnifico, the wizard-king of the small island kingdom of Rosas. In Rosas every citizen upon immigrating or turning 18 surrenders their greatest wish to Magnifico. They forget what their wish was and become essentially a satisfied person without motivation (some parallels to Brave New World). Every month Magnifico holds a wishing ceremony and grants the wish of one of Rosas’s citizens. Asha learns that Magnifico only grants the wishes of those who don’t threaten his control over the kingdom. She makes a wish on a star that then comes down out of the sky to return the wishes and hearts to all the citizens of Rosas.

Wish has tributes to other pieces of Disney throughout the movie. The film starts off with Asha giving a tour of Rosas, “the magical kingdom where all your wishes come true.” Sounds like the advertising material for Disneyland. Bambi shows up in the movie. There are characters that are references to Robin Hood, Zootopia, Snow White, and Peter Pan. King Magnifico seemed like a representation of Walt Disney himself at the start of the movie until his heel-turn moment. One could argue that Walt Disney himself was a heel, but that’s a different point.

Voice acting was great throughout the movie with Chris Pine stealing the show as King Magnifico. My kids noted that he was very scary once he became a villain and were upset that he’d been misleading all the citizens. His controlling vision of the kingdom struck them harder than everything else in the movie. No nightmares fortunately!

The movie used a slightly modified animation style compared to Disney’s modern films of Tangled and Frozen. Every character was in 3D, but the backgrounds were rendered to make them look more like flat 2D images. The effect felt like a blending of Disney’s classic animation style and the modern style. It’s a fairly low-key element of the movie though. I’m certain that most people didn’t notice it as much as I did.

Like most Disney films, Wish is a musical. Six new songs feature in the film. They were good and have become a bit of ear worm for my family. Not as staggeringly good as Frozen or Tangled in my opinion though. Wish isn’t one of Disney’s strongest movies, but its no Treasure Planet either. The music definitely felt like something that would work in a parade at Disneyland without much modification at all.

So the usual question, should you see this movie? I feel like its a great movie for kids, but it wasn’t stunning for me as an adult in the same way that Onward was. Not as good a soundtrack as Encanto. But overall better than Strange World and Elemental. If you’re a fan of Disney stuff in general you might enjoy the movie. But if you are a fan of Disney films then I’d say wait on seeing Wish until it comes out on Disney+. The movie experience is fun on its own, but you won’t get much more at the theater that you won’t get at home when you see Wish.