Wish meets but doesn’t exceed Disney fans’ expectations

As a longtime Disney fan, the movie “Wish,” the 100th anniversary celebration for the company, was a pretty fun time at the theater. It was great to see an animated musical from them again. 

The film featured great music, animation, and acting; however, it lacked cohesiveness and impactfulness in some areas. 

In terms of the music, my favorite song is the one Aisha sings when she’s wishing on the star, and my second favorite is the villain’s song, “This is the Thanks I Get.”

Chris Pine did a great job as the villain, King Magnifico, known for some previous live-action Disney roles including Cinderella’s Prince in “Into The Woods” and Nicholas in “The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.” 

It’s great to finally see a real Disney animated villain that’s not just a twist villain again. I also really enjoyed this animation style, which was a great blend of the different and the familiar.

I also really enjoyed the nods to other Disney films. The opening was a direct nod to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and references to “Peter Pan,” “Mary Poppins,” and “Bambi” were noticed as well. 

The pet goat, Valentino, is also a really funny side character, played by Alan Tudyk, known for other Disney-animated film roles such as King Kandy in “Wreck-It-Ralph,” Duke of Weselton in “Frozen,” and his parody character in “Zootopia,” Duke Weaselton, and Alistair Krei in “Big Hero 6.” 

One of the fall-down funny scenes is when Aisha opens the door for her family, exclaiming the star granted her wish, to which they all find Valentino training a bunch of dancing chickens. 

The credits were also really creative, showing characters from every animated Disney feature up to this time barring The Rescuers for whatever reason. 

There’s a lot here for Disney animation fans to admire for sure. That being said, I don’t know if I could call it a new favorite, even though I indeed liked it more than “Strange World” and “Lightyear.” It’s really hard to match such impactful films as “Tangled,” “Frozen,” and even the now two-years-old “Encanto.” 

The story was also a bit confusing for me in some spots. I can’t wait to watch it again for that aspect so I can watch it with subtitles. 

Some of it also felt like a blatant rip-off of other Disney films. For example, the opening song about the kingdom of Rosas is a blatant rip-off of “Welcome to the Family Madrigal” from Encanto in the way it is filmed and sung. 

Another song, “You’re A Star,” has some lines to it where the animals singing it try to sound cool, which doesn’t match the context of a once-upon-a-time setting. 

Except for the two songs I previously mentioned, the songs don’t possess the same impact that other films’ songs did. They’re catchy and all, but again, hard to match, and something about the story was a bit confusing and lacked some of the cohesiveness that made the classics so great. 

Despite the villain being voice acted wonderfully, it’s really hard to match the impactfulness of characters like Frollo, Gaston, Jafar, Mother Gothel, etc. A good villain, but I don’t know if I’d say one of the greats. 

In short, while I enjoyed this movie, I don’t think I’d put it with Disney’s finest animated features. I’d say I got what I asked for, but wasn’t expecting an experience on the level of, say, Tangled. It would take a lot to get that again, and I knew going in that probably wouldn’t happen. 

If you’re a die-hard Disney animation fan, you’ll get your fill for sure, but, in my opinion, don’t expect the “next big thing” from this.