Wish

• Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn (Her Feature Directorial Debut)
• November 8, 2023 (El Capitan Theatre) / November 22, 2023 (US)

Voice Cast

• Asha-Ariana DeBose
• King Magnifico-Chris Pine
• Valentino-Alan Tudyk
• Queen Amaya-Angelique Cabral
• Sabino-Victor Garber
• Sakina-Natasha Rothwell
• Dahlia-Jennifer Kumiyama
• Gabo-Harvey Guillén
• Hal-Niko Vargas
• Simon-Evan Peters
• Bazeema-Della Saba
• Safi-Ramy Youssef
• Dario-Jon Rudnitsky
• Mountain Climber, Tall Man Tourist, Guard #1-Keone Young
• Flying Woman-Heather Matarazzo
• Sania-Nasim Pedrad

When a young girl makes a plea to the stars in a moment of need and it is answered by a living fallen star, they face off against her kingdom’s ruler-a powerful wizard.

As an anniversary celebration for Disney’s 100, we can get into whether or not using CGI was appropriate for a company that began its ascent with 2-D animation but the real sin in all this is that Wish is only an okay film. It lacks bold colors or interesting character designs. The color palette feels rather muted. The animation itself is reminiscent in my mind of cheap direct-to-video animation. Certainly more refined but still of a similar appearance.

I guess the story was meant to be derivative of what one assumes a Disney film to be. A joke? There is a far-off magical kingdom ruled by King Magnifico (what a horrible name) who takes the wishes of the citizens along with immigrants and locks them away in a room. Every once in a while (I’m not sure if it’s monthly or annually) there’s a gathering of all the citizens and he grants one wish to a person even though they have forgotten what that wish is as part of the handing over process.

Theat MAY have to do with previous (and undefined) trauma Magnifico experienced in the past that not only convinced him to study magic but also to eventually found his island kingdom of Rosas. Based on what little we learn about his background (and we don’t learn too much) it sounds almost as if his whole motivation is not just to protect his people, but also to protect his people from the type of pain he went through by taking their wishes and allowing them to forget them so they do not live with the pain of not fulfilling them. Not necessarily a villainous motivation even if it is misguided. 

This comes off as a poorly handled metaphor about the cost of giving up on your dreams and how wishes give us something to strive for. The badly handled metaphors even extend to when the king realizes that by crushing the hopes and dreams of others he gains greater power.

Yet Rosas looks like a very productive society. The only thing Magnifico seems to provide is general protection which allows his economy and everything else to really flourish.  Magnifico may be misguided but he is not necessarily harming anyone intentionally. Everybody appears happy even if there is mild disappointment with not getting their wish. He only goes full villain when our ‘hero’ Asha decides to upend society and in desperation Magnifico uses a book of forbidden magic that he kept for an emergency. And tearing down your government sounds like an emergency.

But I guess a happy populace and all that is too much to have because our heroine Asha who, because she sees her grandfather’s rather vague wish to do something that inspires people with Magnifico rightly pointing out all the bad versions of inspire, decides that the social order needs to be up ended and determines to get back her grandfather’s wish so he can feel the pain of never having accomplished it? I’m not sure what good that would do.

The Teens (Aisha’s friends) are said to be inspired by the Seven Dwarves. Maybe but the connection is thin. I buy more that Star the Wishing Star is inspired by “When You Wish Upon a Star” and that is my own little assumption. The most overt they get as a nod to Disney history is during the credits. You see images of Wreck-It Ralph or Snow White or Cinderella and so forth. You don’t need something blatantly obvious during the presentation but something a little bit more noticeable than the brief reference to Beauty and the Beast and better than what they claim to have done with The Teens.

Being a Disney film Wish contains some musical numbers. It is serviceable in that department but not great. The songs are okay but there is nothing that could ever become a top 40 hit in comparison to songs from the Disney Renaissance nor is there anything that you’ll be humming once you watch this nor is there anything that.

I didn’t find the characters particularly memorable beyond the goat Valentino and a mouse which relays a message to Queen Amaya. If I hadn’t wrote this and you would come up to me on the street right after watching this I couldn’t even tell you the heroine’s name. She is that bland as are most of the characters.

And I understand that the character that caused all the problems that lead to the finale was meant to be a surprise but in no way does it connect to what came before. There are no elements that I could say they could draw from the first 2/3 of the movie to make his betrayal made sense. It felt like a lazy swerve from a hack writer.

The ultimate disposition of Magnifico bothers me. It’s clear he got corrupted by the book even if he was a bit of a jerk for what he was doing. It didn’t sound as if he was trying to be evil with how he handled things. Yet he gets stuck in a diamond and hung in a dungeon presumably for all eternity unless he needs food to eat while he’s in that prison diamond otherwise he will not be there too long. No lesson learned. It felt like this guy who started out with good intentions but poor execution and then got corrupted by an evil book of forbidden magic got a far worse fate than he actually deserved.

Not that much changed at all for the characters or the kingdom. Asha was given a magic wand by Star before it left for her to do what? Was she to take Magnifico’s place? Grant wishes? Defend the kingdom? How exactly did she earn the power to defy reality? And the kingdom is now ruled by Queen Amaya who dumped her husband once the political winds shifted. How is she to even be trusted?

With poorly handled metaphors and a lack of memorable songs or characters and a bland color palette, Wish is enjoyable yet forgettable and a poor way to celebrate a centennial. Don’t seek out, but if you find yourself with the opportunity it’s nothing to turn your nose up at.