Yahoo News The ‘Enchanted’ Sequel Stinks. (But Amy Adams Is Still Flawless.)
It’s a well-known fact that Amy Adams deserved an Oscar for her performance as Giselle in the 2007 Disney classic Enchanted. The Academy miffed it, but the movie was nominated for a trio of its amazing original songs, meaning she still had to perform at the Academy Awards ceremony. If you’re going to drag Amy Adams onto the Oscar stage, for the love of Andalasia, give her a nod at least!
Luckily, the Academy will have a chance to right their wrongs with Disenchanted, the film’s long overdue sequel, in which Adams revives her signature shimmer. Yes, Adams deserves an Oscar yet again for her role in Disenchanted. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as the compliments for the sequel reach—the rest of the film, from the convoluted plot to the complete lack of humor, doesn’t measure up to its predecessor.
While part of the charm of Enchanted was the harsh New York setting, the sequel says goodbye to the Big Apple. At the start of the movie, Giselle, Robert (Patrick Dempsey), their new tiny baby, and grown-up Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) move out of the city because Giselle misses Andalasia. She wants her fairytale world back. This completely undercuts the whole message of the first film: Giselle moved to New York because it’s hustling and bustling and she wants to turn those subway frowns upside down.
Nevertheless, the family packs up and moves to Monroeville, aka Suburbia, the place Giselle believes is closest to her old magic kingdom. But life isn’t as perfect as one might think. (Has she seen Blue Velvet?) Sweet little Morgan isn’t a young girl anymore, and is sliding into the “totally cruel teen who hates her stepmother” trope. It feels like a random decision, considering she loved Giselle so much in the first film. And then there’s poor Robert, who has a total of five minutes of screen time in this sequel, during which he battles his own inner-demons: working a 9-5 job.
This isn’t the happy lifestyle Giselle was searching for. So, using a magical wand gifted to her by Andalasia’s King Edward (James Marsden) and Queen Nancy (Idina Menzel), Giselle wishes her bad American dream away. Overnight, she’s back in fairytale land, where everyone sings, her stepdaughter loves her, and her husband’s day job is fighting dragons instead of Excel spreadsheets. Perfect.
But perfect has a price, as we’ve come to learn from nearly every single fairy tale that came before Disenchanted. Falling in line with Cinderella, Snow White, and even the original Enchanted, with her “fairy tale” wish, Giselle becomes a wicked stepmother. Not only does she banish poor little Morgan from Monroeville, she also sets her sights on taking down the current queen of the town, Malvina (Maya Rudolph, who, before the big fairy tale switch, was the perfect pissy PTA president).
Disenchanted takes a whole hour to spew out this plot—the move from New York, the tension between Giselle and Morgan, the epic rise of the fairy tale land, the descent into wicked stepmotherhood. The joy, the horror. Why did Disenchanted need to move out to the suburbs? There’s an obvious answer (Disney didn’t want to pay the fat check to film in the Big Apple). But by banishing Giselle from her harmonious rats and roaches, the sequel loses the delightful Elf-like qualities of a fish-out-of-water story.
Amy Adams’ ‘Disenchanted’ Trailer That We Waited 15 Years For Is Finally Here
Because of the time jump, Giselle is now fully acclimated to life in the United States. That makes Disenchanted so far removed from the premise of the original movie, it hardly feels like a sequel. The only ditzy lack of comprehension Giselle has for human civilization now is the concept of “sarcasm,” which snarky teen Morgan uses constantly—so, really, Giselle should understand. There’s no climbing up a billboard to get to a “castle” in the sky in New York, a joke Disenchanted repeats over and over again to remind viewers that this story was once, hey, funny.
The one positive thing about Disenchanted is, again, Amy Adams herself. Code-switching between nasty stepmother and lovable Giselle? Absolute genius. Though Disenchanted lacks in nearly every other department, Adams is still delivering a legendary performance. Whenever she breaks out into song for no reason, no matter how bad the song may be, we get the full Amy Adams experience.
Instead of knocking over sunglasses stands in Times Square and singing with strangers in Central Park, the best clueless humor Disenchanted can offer its heroine is singing in a high-school parking lot to embarrass her stepdaughter. Not only have the jokes taken a steep decline, but the songs, similarly, are worse. None are as enchanting as “That’s How You Know” or as whip-smart as “Happy Working Song”—though in the sequel, thank goodness, Nancy finally gets a song of her own. Let ’er rip, Idina!
When the original characters break out of the snoozefest script—the best is dopey Prince Charming James Marsden, who is criminally underused in the sequel—Disenchanted starts to feel more like its predecessor. But, by the end of the movie, the story devolves into complete chaos. There’s no need for a second evil queen. The resolution feels undercooked, and where the heck is Robert? He was our leading rom-com man in the first movie, and we miss him.
It’s a good thing Disenchanted lands on Disney+ Friday, where it will inevitably earn a handful of nostalgic streams, rather than in theaters. But don’t expect too much from the film, which, to its credit, had a lot to live up to. You’re better off watching Enchanted twice instead then watch this lame sequel. If all you care about is Amy Adams’ stellar performance as Giselle, you might enjoy Disenchanted. Otherwise, the sequel loses all fairy-tale whimsy.
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