It’s hard to believe that the company of Disney has now been around for a century and whether or not you’re a Disney fan or not, credit has to be given where credit is due. Even though their animated short film Steamboat Willie wasn’t the debut of Mickey Mouse, it was the first to be distributed by Disney and ever since that little movie, Disney is now one of the biggest entertainment businesses in the world. From their theme parks, MCU, Star Wars and Cruise lines, Disney has always been making sure their entertainment sticks with audiences for generations. Obviously, all businesses are about profits and returns but even when a small YouTube video comes out celebrating 100 years of Disney you can’t help but get emotional and feel the magic that their movies have brought to millions of people. That’s not to say that everything Disney makes is gold and even during the pandemic they were struggling (as were most studios). In 2023 they’ve been struggling with several of their MCU projects and even some of the Star Wars content hasn’t landed with the masses.
Nevertheless, in the span of all things Disney they’ve had monumental successes both critically and financially and there’s a reason why Dinseyland and Disney World are crowded every single day. In 2023, their latest animated film Wish is the pivotal moment on celebrating the 100 year journey of Disney being the company that it’s been and unfortunately it doesn’t end it on the most strongest note. Wish definitely has some redeeming qualities going for it but overall it never attempted to go for something different. It never strived to go for something bigger. Granted, there’s tons of nods and winks to Disney’s repertoire with the visuals, character designs and other aspects and knowing its been 100 years of Disney, one shouldn’t have expected anything different. However, Disney is better than that’d while Wish isn’t their worst movie by any stretch of the imagination, it should have been a stronger movie.
As mentioned earlier, Wish is a beautiful and stunning achievement purely based on the animated layout. By hybridizing classic 2D animation and the work go CGI, Wish applauds the work that Disney was in the past and still give a distinctive style to the modern day use of computer generated animation. It looks absolutely marvelous and what better way to tribute older Disney movies than for it to be your 100th year of being a company. The other complement that Wish offers is the music. It might not be the caliber of a “Let It Go” but the songs in Wish are perfectly in sync with the narrative of the movie and can be viewed as standalone pieces of work. That also ties in to the talent that leant their voices. Ariana DeBose, coming off of her Oscar win in West Side Story, crushes it particularly with her singing. Her mannerisms and personality fit the character of Asha seamlessly and she fully commands the screen with her majestic singing. Even the additions of Chris Pine and Alan Tudyk were solid.
The biggest problem with Wish is there nothing really that special about it. It’s very tame, cute and breezy to get through but not to get too negative and comparable with the rest of Disney’s animated movies but it’s about as formulaic as you can get. The main character, the villain origin story and the anatomy of the narrative are all recycled ideas that we’ve seen Disney do before. Some with greater complexity and some with lesser impact. The problem with Wish and even Encanto is that while they are giving us new characters, funny side characters and new songs they aren’t giving us anything super deep. It’s also a much shorter movie, so it practically rushes through a lot of important aspects to get invested in.
Disney has done much worse but they should have done much better than this. Wish is by no means a terrible movie nor is it the worst movie Disney has made, but it should have been better.
Zane's take at the Cinema's 