Wish (PG)
95 minutes, opens on Nov 23
3 stars
The story: In the kingdom of Rosas, citizens enjoy carefree lives under the benign rule of their magic-wielding regent King Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine), but teenager Asha (voiced by Ariana DeBose) learns he is not who he claims to be. Her yearning for a better life for her people draws down Star, a being made of light and gifted with magical powers.
Hats off to The Walt Disney Company for being the only studio still making family-friendly films that ask audiences to do more than look at zany creatures or watch sitcoms with drawn characters instead of live actors.
Disney’s animated musicals are in a class of their own. They call on viewers to pay attention to lyrics, drink in gorgeous visuals and follow stories built on the aspirations of idealistic young characters.
Wish ticks all of these boxes. As a work of art, it is an ambitious attempt at summoning the spirit of the Golden Age of animation – the period from 1928 to 1969, when Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937), Fantasia (1940) and The Jungle Book (1967) pushed boundaries with every new release.
While Wish has a foot in the past, it has the other in the present. Asha is every bit the gutsy modern protagonist. She pines for no man and awaits no rescue, and her courage pushes the story along.
Visually, the 2D hand-drawn look of the past is digitally evoked without slavish reproduction. Look at Asha’s pet goat Valentino (voiced by Alan Tudyk) and 1977’s The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh will spring to mind.
There is a “but” coming, and it is that while Wish includes a range of Golden Age influences, it comes after movies that are also inheritors of that legacy.
Encanto (2021) had songs and magic, and not too long before that was Frozen II (2019), the sequel to the phenomenon that was Frozen (2013).
It would be churlish to criticise Disney for making yet another kid-oriented musical when Wish, Encanto and the Frozen films are of such uniformly high quality.
Also, no other mainstream American animation studio is trying to do what it does.
If one were to have a wish come true, though, it would be that Wish pushed the boat out further.
People are living in a time that some have called the mini-Golden Age of animation.
The superhero work Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (2023), the Shrek spin-off Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022) and Irish independent film Wolfwalkers (2020) not only have all-ages appeal, but also show – in thrilling fashion – that one can hark back to tradition while pointing boldly at the future.
Hot take: Released to mark 100 years of animation from The Walt Disney Company, Wish would have been special if not for the wealth of high-quality animation works that have recently been produced.
