Disenchanted Review: Happily Never After

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Disenchanted is a 2022 adventure, comedy that serves as a sequel to 2007’s Enchanted. Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, and Maya Rudolph, most of the cast returns from the original movie. Disenchanted’s plot makes for a more engaging movie when compared to Enchanted, and was a movie we really enjoyed.

Disenchanted Review

Disenchanted has a very different plot to the first film and it takes the story in a different direction than one might expect. We see that quite a few years have passed in New York for Giselle, Robert and Morgan as there is a new member to their family, a baby girl Sofia. They move to a town in the suburbs called Monroeville, and we see that this a big change for the family particularly for Morgan who is a teenager now and didn’t want to leave New York.

Edward and Nancy return from Andalasia to gift Sofia a magic wishing wand. Frustrated that her relationship with Morgan is not as strong as she would hope and wanting the simplicity of her old life, Giselle makes a wish to try and make her new town more fairytale like and the rest of the film sees the outcomes of her wish.

I will say that i like that this was a different direction from the first one because it wouldn’t be interesting to do the first one over again. This way they can use similar elements while at the same time exploring the magical side of this world a bit more. Bringing the magic to Earth from Andalasia is an interesting concept, especially how it is used. I do feel that this film is not as funny though because a lot of the first film’s humour came from the “fish out of water” narrative.

Disenchanted’s characters are pretty decent, with some interesting character arcs. Although it involves some magic and might not be classified as character development, we see a couple different sides of Gisele that I thought made her a much more likeable character. I found the fluffy, Disney princess vibe got old really quickly in Enchanted, so branching out her character was a great idea.

Amy Adams is the highlight of Disenchanted, putting on another solid performance. Her ability to make Gisele shine holds this movie together, and even when the dialogue feels clunky or cheesy, it comes off much better than it was written.

I really enjoyed Patrick Dempsey’s role in the original, but he is not significant in this movie. If you have never seen the original, you are going to learn very little about his character in Disenchanted. He is very important in Enchanted, but almost exclusively in this movie for comedic relief and some nostalgia due to bringing back the cast.

Gabriella Baldcchino, playing a teenage Morgan, is a name have not heard of before this movie, but I also thought she did a wonderful job. Morgan has developed the most since Enchanted, and Disenchanted becomes somewhat of a Coming-of-Age story for Morgan. Morgan was my favourite character as she is important to the plot, has a real personality, and remains the least static through out the movie. It’s interesting to watch her struggle being normal in a magical household and grow into the person she is going to be.

Overall, I thought the characters in Disenchanted were much improved from Enchanted. I thought the acting was slightly better, but more importantly the characters didn’t feel so annoying. I felt emotionally attached to our cast, and I wasn’t checking the time to see when it would be over.

How does Disenchanted compare to Enchanted?

Disenchanted really only compares to Enchanted in terms of cast. We get a very similar cast, with most actors and actresses returning to their previous roles. The tone of the film is totally different, and the animation style in Andalusia is much more modern. The adventure genre shines through a lot more in Disenchanted, and I really enjoyed it.

Both movies are decent, but I really feel like they work well together to create a competent two movie series. The character set-up in the first movie makes some of the moments in Disenchanted mean so much more. I found Enchanted struggled with plot and Disenchanted struggled with character development, but you pair them together and it becomes a pretty decent 4 hours. Better than the last 4 hour movie I watch at least.