BEFORE: I have this one on my list because I worked at a screening of it last year - but I didn't really like what I saw of the film during the screening, particularly what was in the end credits. Sure, it's Disney Corp's anniversary year, 100 years of making animated films, so the closing credits for "Wish" have characters from "Snow White", "Pinocchio", "Peter Pan", etc. in them. But by placing THIS film on a list with THOSE classics implies that this film is of the same caliber, and well, that remains to be seen. You can no longer say that JUST because something is a Disney film that it's going to be great - I think they're largely resting on their laurels at this point, and the last few films just haven't met the standards of the classic films from the 1950's and 1960's. Just saying.
Harvey Guillén carries over from "Blue Beetle". Let me be clear tonight, I'm watching this one JUST to clear it off the list, and because it's going to allow me to connect to my Father's Day films in a couple of days.
THE PLOT: A young girl named Asha wishes on a star and gets more than she bargained for when a trouble-making star comes down from the sky to join her.
AFTER: Yeah, this film is really terrible. The story is all muddled, the motivations of the characters are all screwed-up, and the plot is driven by people wishing for things, and having their wishes turned into tangible bubbles that are then handed over to the King of Rosas, whose name is Magnifico, and he grants the wish of one lucky citizen every month or so. But this means that the majority of the wishes he stores for them do NOT get granted, and as a side-effect of this process, most people end up forgetting about what they wished for, because they've handed over their wish bubble. So most of Rosas' citizens live in the shadow of the castle, waiting hopefully for their wish to be granted, and they mostly wait in vain.
Ugh, it's so unnecessarily confusing. What does Magnifico get by keeping the wishes for himself, away from the wishers? Do they grant him power, or is he just doing this to control the populace, and keep them from making their lives better in ways that don't benefit the common good, or more likely, the King's definition of the common good? Damn, there's ALMOST a metaphor here for our modern form of government, except for the whole king thing. How many people in the U.S. are prevented from pursuing their life goals because they can't afford to do so, or they need more education or training that they're not eligible for, or because it's just not profitable for them to pursue that career in music, or art, or poetry, for example?
Well, for that matter now I'm wondering if this movie is some kind of Trump allegory, because Magnifico does seem rather vain and pompous and overly full of himself. Or maybe Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who's been feuding with Disney on a number of issues concerning free speech, Pride Day at Disney and such. Really, the king here could be a symbol for any number of conservative politicians who don't want the people to have the right to love who they want, live how they want and have control over their own careers and bodies. Right? Just me? But even if I consider "Wish" some kind of veiled anti-Trump statement, that really doesn't make it very entertaining.
Plus, I'm kind of over the whole "When You Wish Upon a Star" thing, even if you believe in that sort of nonsense, the "Puss in Boots" sequel did a much better job of showing how a falling star would cause a ruckus in a storybook/fairy-tale land. Go watch that one instead of this one, I say. Besides, we all know that even the closest stars are millions of miles away from our solar system, so there's no way they could have any effect on our hopes and dreams today, some of those stars you see in the sky might have already burned out, and you're seeing their light from years ago, any particular star might not even be there any more. Sorry. People wished on stars when they didn't know what they were, and there's not even such thing as a "falling star" at all, I mean we have meteorites that fall to Earth, but those aren't stars at all, so if we're making a movie for kids, they need to learn for the sake of science that a star simply can not fall to Earth. Why continue the charade if the science doesn't back this up?
Anyway, you know what's better than wishing on a star? Coming up with a solid plan to bring that thing about that you're wishing for, doing a little research, getting the education or training you need to move your life in that direction, or practicing that musical instrument for hours and days and weeks until you ARE one of the world's top theremin players, or whatever. Do the work, put in the time, don't just wish on a star and go back to doing other things, that's not a recipe for success, and we shouldn't let kids think that it is. If you want to be a poet or a stand-up comic or a dog walker, that's fine, but take steps to prepare for moving in that direction and then DO IT.
Maybe you'll find out later there's a down-side to being a poet or a stand-up comic or a dog walker, but that's OK, you can change your mind later if you learn that career isn't for you, and then you can come up with a new plan. You can have five, six, seven careers during your whole life, it's OK, but let's leave the stars out of your vision board, OK? Because the stars are millions of miles away and they don't care about you or your dreams, they're not even sentient, despite what some goofy cartoon says.
Anyway, the Star is a character here, and it seems like it can grant wishes, like it makes a goat able to talk and it makes some mushrooms sing or something (smoke that weed when the movie starts and it should JUST kick in at the right time...) but then for some reason the Star stops granting wishes, and the movie goes back to trying to free the wishes from the king's tower, because, well, there's just no other place for the story to GO, it seems. So while Asha is running from Magnifico and distracting him, her group of ethnically diverse and bi-racial and plus-size and for some reason handi-capable friends are busy freeing the wishes. It's to no avail, however, because the King had used his black magics to disguise the ex-friend Simon as himself, all so he could defend the wishes and also capture the star.
So all is lost, except then the entire populace of Rosas rises up together and I don't know, group sings some magic song that breaks his staff and weakens Magnifico's powers, but it's all very fuzzy and stuff and it's really hard to tell what the new magic rules are in this kingdom by this point. We know we need some kind of happy ending, so that's the way the magic works, all of a sudden? It's all just so lame, and like I figured, it's just not on a par with "Snow White" and "Pinocchio" and "Peter Pan". The older Disney films just had more clearly defined parameters about how magic works, maybe?
There are a ton of Disney Easter eggs here, like Asha has seven friends who have attributes that call to mind the seven dwarves from "Snow White", and Saba strums "When You Wish Upon a Star" on his lute, a deer character is nicknamed "Bambi" and the fireworks form a giant Mickey Mouse silhouette in the sky - but all that is window-dressing, there's just no way this film stands on its own with such a weak and fuzzy story. And Asha's grandfather is celebrating his 100th birthday, just like the Disney Studio - but when does the Disney Studio get tired of sucking its own dick? Never, apparently.
Also starring the voices of Ariana DeBose (last seen in "West Side Story" (2021)), Chris Pine (last seen in "All the Old Knives"), Alan Tudyk (last seen in "Tell"), Angelique Cabral (last seen in "How it Ends"), Victor Garber (last seen in "You Again"), Natasha Rothwell (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Jennifer Kumiyama (last seen in "The Sessions"), Niko Vargas, Evan Peters (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Ramy Youssef (last seen in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"), Jon Rudnitsky (last seen in "Set It Up"), Della Saba (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Keone Young (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2"), Lucas Sigler, Holland Watkins, Woody Buck, Efé, Nicole Lynn Evans, Heather Matarazzo (last seen in "Scream 3"), Nasim Pedrad (last seen in "Aladdin" (2019))
RATING: 3 out of 10 violent talking rabbits?
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