It took Disney 15 years to get a sequel out for the mighty popular Enchanted, the musical-princess movie that made Amy Adams a star.
If they were spending that time looking feverishly for a proper follow-up to their hit … they most certainly didn’t find it. If they spent that time trying to concoct one of the worst sequels to a decent movie in the history of modern cinema, they’ve succeeded with Disenchanted.
Adams returns as Giselle, now married to Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and living a humdrum life in the real world. Giselle talks Robert into moving their family out of the city and into some community that resembles a fairy tale, or something like that. After they get there, Giselle wishes her life was something more like a fairy tale, and her wish is granted, but this time, she is turned into an evil stepmother. Or something like that. I’m not really sure what the hell was going on in this thing.
It seems as if the writers came up with a fairly concrete idea—Giselle turns evil—and then got scared of it. The movie strains to find ways to have Adams occasionally remain a “Good Giselle” (talking to herself; showing both personalities in one scene) as a means of keeping things upbeat. This results in a total narrative mess. Rumor has it that scenes were added and reshot due to poor test screenings, and the finished product suggests this could be true.
Maya Rudolph shows up as a nemesis of Giselle, and her talents are wasted. Dempsey’s Robert is perhaps the dopiest aspect of the movie, running around trying to save his town from giants and dragons—giants and dragons, mind you, that aren’t actually fully seen, probably due to budgeting constraints. This is a straight-to-Disney+ venture, after all.
As for the music, it’s awful. Idina Menzel has one number that had me wanting to thrust my face through my TV screen rather than listening to her screech one second more. I usually enjoy her voice, but not this time.
Adams deserves more than this. (Dempsey … not so much. He kind of sucked going in.) Audiences certainly deserved better than this atrocious, scattered mess.
Disenchanted is now streaming on Disney+.
