Wish REVIEW: A Flawed yet Soulful Disney film
Wish is honestly not the worst thing I have ever seen. There were certainly issues with the story, but it is certainly not the worst Disney film ever.
The biggest issue of Wish would most likely be its gimmicks. Every little concept and thing that the film places in does not serve a larger purpose. The Star makes every animal sing and dance but what is the larger purpose of it? The goat can talk now so it is cool?
The Star represents how we could try and achieve our dreams without needing to wait for a dictatorial figure to achieve it for us. The problem is that The Star, like the animals and goat, is just a gimmick that Disney is trying so hard to sell toys off. When it does represent something like in the climax resolution then it was pretty good but otherwise it was just a gimmick.
The evil book the king has is just a thing for the plot to move forward. All these little things the films throw in never left a major impact. The core reason for that is due to it being just random stuff that doesn’t serve a larger purpose. Every detail of the story must have some reason to exist. Just because it is a cool idea that does not mean we should just add it in.
The next issue comes down to the characters. The side characters here are unfortunately not the best. While in previous Disney films the side characters tend to have something for us to care for, here none of them really did much nor did they matter to the plot. Delilah is the only one who is semi-interesting because she actually did something like help Asha sneak into the king’s place or stall the king. The others are just kind of there without doing much. In the Little Mermaid every side character had an arc and they actually mattered to the larger picture. Just because they have core traits that does not mean they are compelling. They have to do stuff and achieve something.
That then comes down to the emotional anchored characters being Asha’s grandfather and mother. The problem here is that it is very hard for us to care for them if the story never develops on their characters at all. I know that we were viewing the grandpa through her perspective but as his own individual character, I can’t really care much about him.
There is also Ahsa herself. While I dont see her as terrible the film never develops on any other trait except her core emotional trait of her caring for her grandpa. I know that there is a core trait somewhere but there is not much to go on to call her the next great Disney princess.
Finally, there is a really big villain problem here that screams bland. The problem is actually from the film’s intention itself. Wish is the film that wants to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney and with that there were definitely some references here and there. The references and inspiration unfortunately made some parts of the film worse. For example, Asha’s friends were inspired by the Seven Dwarfs, but they never had traits strong enough to be their own characters. This is also the case for the villain.
The villain starts off as a pretty compelling character who wants to protect people’s wishes because it sucks that our dreams will easily get crushed. So he will be the one who grants other’s wishes. At the same time he can’t just simply grant people’s wishes because some could be dangerous. This is what I really liked about the film. Just because some wishes are not safe then does that mean we should not persuade them? It is very interesting, and the villain is also great. However, the film suddenly has him becoming evil because people started to question him. His entire villain song just shows that he has put up a mask to treat these people nicely when he really hates it. Then he goes on ahead to use this evil book and use people’s wishes for his own power. Everything about his character is gone all in favour of this Disney classic pure evil villain scenario. Don’t get me wrong it is fun to have a pure evil villain but when your villain is not pure evil then you just forced to be one because of reference then it just hinders the actual character development.
With that in mind there are a couple great things which I really enjoyed here. Asha as mentioned is not terrible. Her core emotional goal of helping her grandpa is genuinely compelling. We see her emotional vulnerability through her father and how a wish can be so valuable. We understand why she cares for him so much and why she wants to grant his wish so badly. We see the extent she is willing to take just to help him. We even see the consequences of her goals as to how her actions would genuinely have an impact on others. I just wished they showed more of her character like her flaws and strengths and other stuff like that.
The thematic message of being able to at least try to achieve our wishes instead of just waiting for a dictatorial figure to decide is compelling. We see why a dictatorial figure may choose certain wishes only because some may be more dangerous than others but does that mean we should never grant it? A wish can be good and bad but if we just choose to go about our lives and give our wish away there would seem to be something that feels missing from us. A wish is a part of our very existence. Without it whether it be good or bad how do we know what our purpose truly is? That is what the resolution in the climax showed. That is what the Wishing Star represented. A Star is not just one which belongs in the sky,it is in all of us. We can make our wishes come true. All we have to do is try and believe.
Animation wise I think it feels unique and distinct. It has been a while since Disney tried anything new with their animation style so having one to be adjacent to a storybook breathes some fresh air into an otherwise derivative film with some flaws.
In conclusion,Wish is definitely not the worst Disney film ever and it certainly is not as terrible as everyone wants you to think. The message it brings is inspiring and great, coupled with a great protagonist and beautiful art style, Wish is able to suppress its weak side characters, useless gimmicks and a bland villain.
Wish is now streaming on Disney Plus
