Wish Review | An Emotionally Satisfying Love Letter to 100 Years of Disney Magic

Summary

• Wish captures the essence of classic Disney storytelling, featuring big villains, simple fairy tales, and talking animal sidekicks.
• The movie pays tribute to Disney’s rich history through references and easter eggs, blending hand-drawn animation elements with CGI for a unique visual style.
• Wish showcases an immediately classic, over-the-top villain in King Magnifico, played to perfection by Chris Pine, and introduces a memorable Disney heroine in Asha, portrayed by Ariana DeBose.

When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires, will come to you. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. when you wish upon a star as dreamers do.

There’s a reason that “When You Wish Upon a Star” has become the anthem for Disney. Debuting in the company’s second feature-length animated film, Pinocchio, this melody encompasses everything viewers think when they think of Disney. The idea of wishing upon a star is to believe that something out of reach is tangible. The idea of dreaming of something greater has been integral to the identity of Disney as a studio and an idea in the public consciousness. The stories are ones of wish fulfillment. Wish, the latest film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, looks to capture the essence of that story in one tale. Thankfully, they did it and made a movie that looks and feels like a timeless Disney fairy tale.

Wish was designed to be released during Disney’s 100th-anniversary celebration, but it also feels appropriate that it is being released close to the tenth anniversary of Frozen. While Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Wreck-it-Ralph kicked off a new creative and financially successful era for Disney Animation, it was Frozen that truly ushered in a new era for the studio. Frozen became a cultural phenomenon that Disney had not seen since The Lion King. It was all about reinventing the Disney formula, updating it for the 21st century, and addressing many critiques of the animation studio. The following animated films, Zootopia, Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, and Strange World were all movies building off the template that Frozen laid down.

If Frozen was the deconstruction, Wish​​​​​​, appropriately, is a reconstruction. Wish returns to more classical Disney elements, one that features big bombastic villains, a simple fairy tale story in a fictional faraway kingdom with talking animal sidekicks, to even opening with a storybook like many classic Disney films used to. All of this is intentional, as the idea is that Wish is the most recent Disney story, but it is also the story of the star that many past characters wished upon. Just as the light from real stars can take hundreds of years to reach Earth, here, the magical wishing stars’ light can transcend time and space to be seen from Geppetto’s window to Arendelle to the far reaches of space. Across stories, timelines, and genres, the idea of wishing is universal.

100 Years of Magic

Wish

Release Date November 22, 2023

Director Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn

Cast Alan Tudyk, Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine

Main Genre Animation

Wish follows Asha (Ariana DeBose), a young girl in the Kingdom of Rosas, which is ruled over by King Magnifico (Chris Pine), a powerful sorcerer who takes people’s wishes, and they hope he will one day grant them. When she goes to interview for the part of his apprentice, Asha discovers that Magnifico actually holds people’s wishes hostage and sometimes has no intention of granting them, as the wishes give him more power. When Asha wishes to the stars for guidance, an actual star, appropriately named Star, comes to help her fight the power-hungry King Magnifico. Together, they work to have him release the kingdom’s wishes and make a better future for everyone.

From top to bottom, Wish is designed to remind viewers of Walt Disney Animation’s rich history. While Disney films from the past have drawn from fairy tales, Wish is an original story with no pre-existing basis other than Disney itself. The film is filled with references and easter eggs to past animated classics, with some character designs clearly meant to evoke some favorite Disney figures. Yet, this is not done in a distracting way but more as a meta-commentary on how stories build on one another. Wish is as much a movie about Disney’s 100-year legacy in animation as it is the story of a young woman looking to change the world.

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This love letter to Disney’s creative drive also influences the film’s animation style. While it is CGI like some recent Disney animated films, it also aims for a hand-drawn animation look. It merges it with a watercolor background aesthetic that one would find in classic Disney animated films like Pinocchio or Sleeping Beauty. The mix of hand-drawn elements into a CGI film is a nice reversal of the years when Disney would experiment with incorporating CGI into hand-drawn animated films like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Some fans might have hoped for a traditional 2D animated film for the 100th anniversary, but Wish is a beautiful marriage of the two styles.

Great Characters Become Disney Icons

One of the best elements of Wish is the use of a classic, over-the-top villain. For over a decade, Disney has either opted for the surprise third-act villain like Prince Hans in Frozen or the no-true-villain like in Strange World. Yet Wish hearkens back to the days when a villain was evil and relished it. Chris Pine’s King Magnifico stands tall with Maleficent, Hades, and Ursula. Pine continues to prove himself to be the best Chris in Hollywood. Not only can he sing, but he is incredibly funny in the role and truly terrifying. For an actor associated with heroic figures like Captain Kirk or Steve Trevor, hearing Pine revel in his villainy elevates Wish.

Pine is so great he almost overshadows the picture. Thankfully, Ariana DeBose makes Asha a great Disney hero. DeBose is an Academy Award winner, and her performance in Spielberg’s West Side Story is more than enough to sell that these songs will soar. She knocks it out of the park and elevates “I Wish” to being one of the most powerful and moving songs from Disney. Asha is a clever combination of many classic Disney archetypes to make a Disney heroine unlike any other. She embodies the Walt Disney quote, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Alan Tudyk has become Disney’s good luck charm, as he has appeared in every animated film since Wreck-It-Ralph. That means that his role comes with being weighed against his past contributions, as sadly, Valentino, the baby goat, might be the weakest element of the film. While Disney has committed to having animals not talk in movies like Tangled, Frozen, and Moana, it’s nice to see a return to the “talking animal sidekick” that we know and love. It’s just that, when stacked against the rest of Tudyk’s work with Disney, it feels like it’s only for the kids. But, to be fair, this is a kids movie.

A Change in Disney Music’s Tempo

Disney

In terms of music, Wish makes an interesting pivot. Disney’s past hires of wife and husband duo Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, or Lin Manuel Miranda were known for their work on Broadway. Their songs were similar to the days when Disney hired Howard Ashman to pen the lyrics, with Alan Menkin’s music for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.

Yet for Wish, they hired Julia Michaels, Benjamin Rice, and JP Saxe for the songwriting team. It could be easy to write this off as a step down from Broadway lyricists. But it is worth noting that during the Disney Renaissance, they made a similar shift. Following Howard Ashman’s death in 1991, Disney shifted to rock and pop legends to help craft their music. Elton John on The Lion King, Phil Collins on Tarzan and Brother Bear, and Sting for the original version of The Emperor’s New Groove titled Kingdom of the Sun. While Lin Manuel Miranda and the Lopez duo certainly are missed, and the music in Wish never tops the songs in Encanto or Frozen, they are still pretty great and fit comfortably within the Disney canon.

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After a rough opening song, “Welcome to Rosas” (which is trying to be this film’s version of “The Family Madrigal”), the movie finally settles into its groove with the second song, “At All Cost,” a great duet between DeBose and Pine that mixes the elements of a classic “I Want” song with hints of a villain anthem. The best song, though, might be “Knowing What I Know,” a song with a great drum rhythm that channels the energy of what made “I’ll Make a Man Outta You” from Mulan so iconic.

To Another 100 Years

Disney

In Hercules, Philoctetes dreamed of seeing one of his heroes in the stars and people saying, “That’s Phil’s boy.” Wish’s end credit scene is that idea, but for Disney as a company; characters from all 100 years of Disney animation are recreated with stars over the credits. It is a curtain call for the company’s first century, giving each film a moment in the spotlight for audiences to clap from popular entries like The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Jungle Book to overlooked or disregarded films like Treasure Planet and Chicken Little. Everyone matters because any of these films could be someone’s favorite.

It is also a beautiful reminder of all the great artists who worked on these films, as their creations have reached generations of fans. Like a star whose light takes years to reach Earth, these characters created in starlight still have the ability to impact audiences long after they were created, and in some cases, their creators are gone.

Disney

These characters and the movies they are from, for many, are tied to important moments in our lives. They remind us of our loved ones, those who are still with us, and those who have sadly passed on. It is a beautiful thing that these films and characters can keep those memories alive and, by extension, their love and spirit.

Wish is precisely what you want from a Disney animated film. It feels classical but also modern, the same way that Frozen did in 2013, or The Little Mermaid did in 1989. Between massive shifts in release schedules and refocusing on different properties, it is unclear what Disney will look like in the future. However, what can be said is that if the company keeps making films like Wish, then the future looks bright. It is an incredibly high note to end the 100-year celebration on.

Wish opens in theaters on November 22, 2023. You can watch the trailer below:

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