Movie review: Will “Disenchanted” live up to its prequel?

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Andrea Huete, Copy Editor

Disney has come up with another fairy tale.

Disney+ will exclusively be releasing and streaming “Disenchanted” Nov. 18. The film is a sequel to “Enchanted,” released on Thanksgiving weekend in 2007, starring Amy Adams.

“The movie was designed to imagine what would happen if a Disney-esque animated princess was somehow transported into the real world,” according to a Screen Rant article.

The original film was directed by Kevin Lima and written by Bill Kelly. 

“Enchanted’s” description on IMDb mentioned that a young maiden, Giselle, played by Adams, lived in a land called Andalasia. She was prepared to be wed to prince Edward, played by James Marsden, but was sent away to New York City by an evil queen. When Giselle was sent over to New York, she fell in love with Robert, played by Patrick Dempsey, who at the start wanted to propose to Nancy, played by Idina Menzel.

At the start of “Enchanted,” viewers can see the cross reference of various Disney films such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

In the animated part of the film, when Giselle asked for help in dressing up and cleaning, the animals seemed similar to those in “Cinderella” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” And the way Giselle calls to animals and asks for assistance when creating a prince’s body seems similar to that of Aurora in “Sleeping Beauty”. 

When Giselle is pushed into a well to be in a land “where there is no happily ever after,” she has to learn how to behave and act around others. Luckily, when Robert and his daughter come into the picture, we see how they welcome her to New York.

To assist Giselle at the time, the father-daughter pair welcome her into their home in an attempt to send her off as she needs to be. However, because she falls asleep, afraid to bother her rest, they let her be. 

The next morning, we see the disorder in the house that was left behind from the father-daughter duo. Giselle wanted to help clean, so she called animals by singing a song. It was very strange to see the different animals who wanted to assist within an animated film versus a more realistic point of view. 

In the animated part, we see that Giselle lived in the woods, so there were birds, squirrels, raccoons and deer that came to help clean. The animals were small in size and that made them look cute.

In a realistic point of view in New York, it kind of surprised me to see the animals that showed up to help. They were rats, flies, pigeons and flying roaches. Oh, how that scene freaked me out! It successfully added to the comedy in the film, especially when the father-daughter pair freaked out and remove all of the creatures from their home.

In addition, I enjoyed the amount of diversity represented within the film. Unlike Disney movies from the past, I thought the use of different cultures and skin color was nicely presented.

In just the dancing scene within the park, we see a colored band play instruments in what seemed to be a shekere, djembe drum and snare drum. We saw a mariachi band play, Irish couples dance and then a belly dancer with dancing candles on the head came into the scene. 

With how well the “Enchanted” film was shown and portrayed, I’m sure folks are looking forward to the coming sequel. 

In the official Disney+ trailer for the new film, directed by Adam Shankman, it captures Giselle wishing for her life to be more like a fairytale. It seems that she wasn’t satisfied with her happily ever after. In the trailer we see how she turns to magic and grabs a wand to grant her wish. Unfortunately, her wish didn’t go well and it turned everything terribly wrong.