Ahead of its official Thanksgiving holiday release on November 22, critics are weighing in on Wish — the newest original musical fairy tale from Walt Disney Animation Studios, which draws inspiration from 100 years of animated storytelling tradition at the studio.
The illustratively rendered CG pic centers on an idealistic teenager named Asha (voiced by Oscar winner Ariana DeBose) whose powerful wish summons a wishing star from the heavens, putting her at odds with the magical kingdom’s controlling monarch (Chris Pine). Helping her are a varied cast of friends and family — voiced by the likes of Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Evan Peters, Harvey Guillén, singer Jennifer Kumiyama and others — as well as her faithful pet goat (Alan Tudyk). Angelique Cabral also stars as the queen of Rosas.
The film is helmed by Oscar-winning director Chris Buck (Frozen, Frozen II) and Fawn Veerasunthorn (Raya and the Last Dragon, with Disney Animation CCO Jennifer Lee (Frozen, Frozen II) executive producing and writing (with Allison Moore).
While fans are eager to take in this centennial ode to Disney’s many iconic animated features (evidenced by the record-setting trailer launch), the film is having mixed success with critics, ranking 63% on Rotten Tomatoes (48 reviews) and 52 on Metacritic (16 reviews). Reviewers enjoy the warm nostalgia and family-friendly entertainment Wish provides, as well as stand-out singing by DeBose and Pine’s embrace of his ‘villain era.’ Some were left lukewarm by this same predictably “Disney” story and felt this hundred-year recap relied too much on reminding viewers of the studio’s catalog through Easter eggs. So far, Wish is lower on the TomatoMeter than recent Disney originals Strange World (72%), Encanto (92%) and Raya and the Last Dragon (93%).
Here’s a medley of critiques from around the web:
“Let’s be real: If you hate all things Disney or are a big ol’ cynic, you’re not going to like the new animated musical Wish … Wish wraps up Disney’s 100th-anniversary celebration, and it’s pulled out all the stops, right up until the not-so-bitter end, with nods to animated classics and characters. (There’s a reason why Asha has seven color-coordinated friends.) Most lean clever rather than cheap, and the film always has youngsters in mind, so they’ll likely remember Valentino conducting a Busby Berkeley-style chicken extravaganza rather than Magnifico’s petty authoritarianism.”
— Brian Truitt, USA Today
“The Disney team used the Academy Sci-Tech Award-winning Meander digital drawing system to craft Wish, which often looks painterly and hand-made (especially when focused on Asha and her adorable freckles, realistic braids, and genuinely charming overall look). It also dazzles during the bigger set pieces but becomes muddled when it comes to quieter moments and sequences involving larger crowds. Stay focused on Asha, Star, and the increasingly insane Magnifico (Pine is clearly having a great time here, and it shows), and Wish will go down easy.”
— Kate Erbland, IndieWire
“Wish is almost defiantly formulaic, a sweetly told fairy tale about a young girl who defies evil and finds the good within us all. In this film, perhaps more than any, the formula is the point: it is a tribute to that formula … [It’s] hard not to be swept up by the old-fashioned Disney magic of it all. This might not be the venerable animation house at its very best, but it is a reminder of why they have endured for so long. Why change a formula when it’s a winning one?”
— John Nugent, Empire
“…Disney, in the midst of commemorating its 100th anniversary, has become a company so focused on itself that it has now produced a kind of fairy-tale signifier of its own brand. The studio’s cartoons have always borrowed bits and pieces from each other (all those princesses, all those talking animals and singing kitchenware, and what is Simba losing his father in The Lion King but the death of Bambi’s mother redux?). But Wish self-consciously packs 85 years of animated magic into a portable Disney fable. Does that make it a summation or a pastiche? A movie marbled with pop history or overstuffed with Easter eggs? One that launches the next Disney century or is stuck in the last one? Maybe all of the above.”
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“At the heart of Wish is a topical and winning formula, so it’s a shame that it’s squandered for the sake of a lukewarm, ultimately safe conclusion. The film co-opts and parades a rebelliousness it doesn’t want to commit to: Good wins, but only within the existing structure. If our continuously unprecedented times have taught us any lessons, it’s that the present-day order will need nothing less than a total overhaul. If the last number of Wish — a powerful reprise of “This Wish” — tells us anything, it’s that Asha and her people know that, too.”
— Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter
