Disney’s Encanto - November 2021

[darthtoon]

Originally Posted by Farerb

The film was underwhelming and disappointing to me. Everything felt flimsy and superficial, I honestly don't understand how the director of Tangled and Zootopia came up with a film like this.

Not everything is bad, so I'll start with the good - I liked that the film didn't have an exposition dump like Raya and the Last Dragon did, it didn't weigh down the flow of the narrative. I thought Mirabel was very likeable and there were several moments that were very emotional and might make people cry - I think the good reviews are mainly because of these moments,

[Show spoiler]mainly Mirabel's ceremony and the "Dos Oruguitas" sequence

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However, these moments don't really make up for everything else.

[Show spoiler]I thought the characters were extremely superficial and the relationship Mirabel has with them were underdeveloped, especially with her sisters

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[Show spoiler]yes, we see Isabela being rude to her in the beginning, but that doesn't mean that these few moments define their relationship, I really wanted them to go deeper than that and maybe explore Isabela being a little bit resentful towards Mirabel for not having to deal with the burden of having powers. Both Luisa and Isabela were basically there just for their songs and then they went back to being background characters. I really don't care about any of their characters truthfully

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Another issue I had with the ending:

[Show spoiler]I really didn't like that they got their powers back, they did a song where they say they can be as good without powers, but then they get it back, felt like cheating and it was not really earned, I'm guessing they did that in order to not close the door on a potential franchise: sequel or Disney+ series

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And one more thing about the situation with WDAS - I think that it's very troubling that in 2016 they released not one, but two really great films and they really were on top of their game, both Zootopia and Moana really made me look forward to what the studio will do next, and yet all the 4 films they've released since then were not really good and pretty mediocre. Something I've felt for a long time is that WDAS has entered a new dark era, starting with Ralph Breaks the Internet, and yet no one realizes it because the reviews for for animated films have low standard these days so we get 90%+ for both Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto (I think I know the reason why but I think it's best not to share it), but maybe that's just me, maybe I'm too old that I don't find these films engaging anymore (though that's not the case with Pixar). It's sad to say that I'm not really looking forward to any future projects from WDAS.

It is possible that they have a tighter schedule now, with movies and series for Disney Plus