Review of Wish, directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn

My sister and I have an AMC A List subscription, which, for those of us not in the United States, is a subscription to a national chain of movie theaters called AMC.

The subscription means that for a flat fee each month for the subscription, we can watch up to three movies a week, unless the movie is considered to be a blacked out one (such as the Taylor Swift concert, for example).

This means we watch a ton of movies compared to the average person, as we go every week, and I sometimes go without her in addition to our movie together.

That said, we were really interested in Wish because we kept getting slammed with the trailers for the movie up to six months before the film was even planning to hit the movie theaters. The trailer looked really interested, so I was surprised when the critic reviews came out completely trashing the film.

Despite knowing the poor reaction to the movie, one Sunday we decided to brave the crowds and see it anyways. And man, I forgot how much I hated the crowds that come out for more popular movies. The audiences these days simply don’t know when to be quiet, which creates a lot of problems when you’re trying to enjoy the movie.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

One girl sets out on an adventure to go and rescue everyone in the kingdom’s wishes.

This movie begins with setting the scene for our fair story. The antagonist of the movie is King Magnifico, but as the story explains, he established the kingdom of Rosas, which is where the movie takes place, with his wife.

He’s quite the talented sorcerer, and because of that, he promises all of the people living within the kingdom to grant their wishes. In order to do so, they have to entrust him with their wish, losing their memory of it in the process, and the king chooses one wish once a month to be granted in a grand ceremony.

Which leads us to the present moment: Asha, who is 17, dreams of her grandfather being able to get his wish for his 100th birthday. She believes the King will give it to him in the ceremony, and, instead of helping her mother bake the birthday cake, she sets out for an interview with the King in order to become his assistant.

Encouraged by the Queen, Asha is confident about what’s to come, but when she meets Magnifico, he reveals the truth behind his process. She is mesmerized by the glowing wishes being kept in his castle, but when she asks him about granting her grandfather’s wish, he calls it too dangerous, saying it might rally the people against him. The wish, in reality, is to just sing for people in the square.

It’s this moment Asha realizes he never plans on giving the wishes back, and Magnifico says that he will never grant any of her family’s wishes, nor give her the position. Dejected, she goes home and then tries to tell her family what happened, but they don’t believe her. She makes a wish on a star, but then one of the stars actually comes down to her. They discover the star has the power to give the animals the ability to talk, which makes her realize the star can help her save the kingdom.

However, Magnifico senses the exact moment when the star comes down, and debates turning to the dark magic book in his study. His wife encourages him not to do so, but this is just the beginning of a spiral, as he’s unable to cope with the thought of anyone taking his iron grip away from him.

With the help of her friends, Asha steals back her grandfather’s wishes, but then Magnifco arrives, ready to arrest the family for Asha summoning the star. He’s fallen completely to dark magic by this point, and Asha and her family flee. One of her friends had sold her out, which led to this scenario becoming even more worse, and Magnifico uses dark magic to grant his wish, but making his undying loyal to the King.

After telling her family to row to a nearby island, Asha returns to Rosas, finding her friends, now sold out by the bewitched Simon, and they make a plan to take down the King. The queen joins them after they manage to relay a message to her. Her friends break into his study while Magnifico chases Asha, but it turns out it was Simon in disguise. Magnifico captures her friends, the star, and all of the citizens.

Asha, overpowered by him, tells everyone to wish about changing the future, which is what ends up taking down the King. His magic traps him into the staff he wields, and the citizens regain their wishes. The queen now rules the kingdom, banishing the staff with the king into the dungeons, and the star gifts Asha a magic wand before departing for the sky.

Overall Thoughts

This movie had so much potential. It really did from the initial trailer that was going out into the theaters, but in the end the writing for this movie just didn’t work at all. To me, it felt too straightforward and lacked any complex nuance, which was present in the other Disney movies as of late, such as Moana.

We also didn’t have much to learn to love the characters. Asha is a noble character doing it out of motivation for her family and people, but we really don’t see much of her personality outside of this. It’s great she uses her friends, as it shows she can’t do this alone, but I think overall I wanted more from her as a character that we’re simply not given.

Some of the songs were pretty, though. I’ll give them that.

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