Disenchanted review: "A sequel that glitters but can't recapture the magic"

Just seven weeks after Hocus Pocus 2 materialised comes the eye-rubbing appearance of another belated sequel to a much-loved classic on Disney Plus. And while Disenchanted can’t recapture the magic of 2007’s Enchanted, it occasionally glitters like a carriage pulling up to the ball.

Enchanted closed its picture book with Andalasian princess-to-be Giselle (Amy Adams) finding her happy ever after with New York lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his young daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). This picks up 10 years later, with Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) now a moody teenager and big sister to baby Sophia. Giselle, or El for short, is also in something of a funk (though still liable to burst into an Alan Menken song at any moment), so the family ups sticks to America’s own version of a magical kingdom: suburbia.

Only Monroeville isn’t a magic-wand solution. So Giselle wishes upon a real wand brought to her from Andalasia by King Edward and Nancy (a returning James Marsden and Idina Menzel). She asks for a fairytale life. Long picture-book story short, the joy of suddenly having self-sweeping brooms and suburbanites acting as an all-singing, all-dancing flash mob is offset by myriad problems – including Giselle transforming into a wicked stepmother…

The perk ‘n’ pep isn’t as infectious this time around, and the songs – brassy belter ‘Badder’ aside – fail to tap toes and worm ears like the original’s (though Menzel now gets to sing after teaching the world to ‘Let It Go’ in Frozen). Disenchanted also can’t match Enchanted’s reality/fairytale tension or deft messaging. Where that movie offered feminism with a featherlight touch as Giselle learned to step beyond the trammels of life as a 2D princess, this one threatens to lose its tiara twinkle as it juggles themes of identity, memory and a Wizard of Oz-alike message to appreciate what you have.

Even so, it’s a delight to watch Amy Adams do Jekyll and Hyde as she incrementally transforms from cheery Giselle to noxious stepmother, while Maya Rudolph is a whole heap of fun as the ultimate control-freak soccer mom who - of course - becomes queen when Monroeville turns into “one big fantasia”. By the time our leading ladies get to face off at the climactic ball, they’re clearly having a, well, ball as they make each other’s cackles rise. 

Disenchanted is on Disney Plus now. For more, check out the best movies on Disney Plus streaming this moment.