Wish
Disney should have wished for a better movie
Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine make for a tepid duo in Wish.
In the kingdom of Rosas, a dream is a wish your heart makes — which is promptly sucked out of your chest by the wizard King Magnifico (Chris Pine) on your 18th birthday. Why? Well, Magnifico knows the pain of seeing your dreams dashed and wants to protect his people from that heartbreak. So instead of hopes and dreams, he plucks out a bit of your soul and keeps it in a tower somewhere.
When the whim strikes him, Magnifico will grant a wish to someone he sees as deserving. The people gather in the town, hoping it’s their turn to have a wish granted, only to feel heartbreak when someone else it picked. Maybe instead of letting a wizard rip a dream from your chest you could have just practiced the lute and become a madrigal on your own?
Who signed up for this system?
The only person questioning Magnifico and his weird wish hoarding is Asha (Ariana DeBose), who once was a devoted follower of Magnifico and his would-be apprentice. But when she sees the wishes just sitting in his lair and understands how beautiful these dreams are, Asha thinks they should be returned.
When Magnifico balks at the request, Asha takes her wish to the sky, picking out a star and wishing upon it. Surprisingly, the star answers her, coming down from the heavens to help Asha realize her greatest wish.
Can Asha free the wishes of Rosas?
Not since Disney slapped some glitter and a bow on a pair of Mickey ears and charged $40 for them with a straight face, has their been such a condescending cash grab targeted toward small children and Disney Adults. Wish isn’t so much a movie as it is Disney patting itself on the back for 100 years of storytelling. And that’s a shame, because Disney has indeed told some beautiful stories over the last century. This, however, is a poorly thought out, self-congratulatory flick is little more than an Easter Egg hunt that will remind you of vastly superior Disney films.
Everything about this movie — from the forgettable songs to the characters blatantly created so Disney can sell a plush toy — feels like it was developed by a marketing team working off a list of buzzwords. And while Disney has never been above a cash-grab, their stories usually have an emotional core that speaks to audiences and their dreams. Here, possibly because all the dreams are being stored in a magical janitor’s closet, the deep want of Asha, the wish that changes everything is “something more for us than this”. It’s vague and a little soulless when compared to the powerful emotional “want” songs we’re used to in Disney films. Because of this we get no real sense of who Asha or Magnifico are. Asha was Rosas’ number one fan, even leading tours of the kingdom and indoctrinating new citizens, but she abandons all of that patriotism in a blink the first time Magnifico disappoints her. Why does Magnifico want these wishes? What does he use them for? You’ll never know!
Some of the appeal to Disney storytelling has always been the immersive nature of the films. Each world is specific and feels lived in. Belle walks through her poor provincial town while bakers and shoppers buzz in the background. Judy Hopps discovers herself when she joins the diverse city of Zootopia filled with characters operating stores and going about their day. Rosas by contrast is…vaguely mediterranean. The townspeople seem to be happy, but none of them seem to be doing anything, and we get no sense of who these people are or why they joined this weird wish cult.
The Disney references, which used to be fun little cameos that didn’t effect the story, now are the whole point of the movie. The fact that certain characters appear is essentially a tribute to Disney’s history of storytelling, but the problem is the tribute doesn’t bother with storytelling.
There is, however, a darker read on the film that I’m guessing is not Disney Approved. It’s pretty easy to see Magnifico as a stand-in for Disney itself, collecting dreams from people under the guise of protecting them and preserving them, only to commodify their use and stifle creativity whenever anyone challenges them. That’s probably not the story they want to be telling, but I do look forward to the slew of papers that will dissect it as such in college film classes.
And while Wish is almost aggressively middling, the voice acting is at least trying. DeBose has a powerhouse voice and does her best with B-side tracks that sound like Dollar Store Frozen remixes. Pine camps it up as a megalomaniac wizard. But without a back story or motivation to back them up these performances are adrift. And the star, which you’ll see in any theater being sold for $25 as a popcorn bucket, is whimsical but feels like an over-worked artist slapped Baymax’s face on a glowing yellow blob.
Though I’ve been harsh on Wish, I’m not sure it’s a total loss. Little ones will likely laugh at the funny goat and enjoy the pretty floating orbs. But parents are in for a long, tedious movie about the majesty of Disney’s legacy that undermines everything that makes the company magic.
Verdict: How this movie escaped a quiet death on Disney+ is a mystery for the ages.
Wish is rated PG and is available in theaters November 22.
