Review: Disney Descendants

Review
Disney Descendants 

Disney Channel unleashed their newest DCOM on WATCH Disney Channel. So if you can't wait until Friday to see it (which you can, trust me), you can watch it early there.

Let's do a quick plot synopsis then get into the likes and dislikes of this DCOM. Here's the basic plot - the children of classic Disney Villains, who are exiled on the island of the Lost, get a chance at redemption by attending a boarding school at Auradon (the fictional kingdom that units the Disney Kingdoms). Maleficent has cooked up a plan to have them steal the Fairy Godmother's magic wand so they can break free and take over the world. However, contrary to the tagline in the image to the left, it appears no one is born bad, it's a choice.

If you liked High School Musical, there's a chance you will like this DCOM. It's High School Musical with Disney character namesakes. But that is as far as the resemblance goes. It seems that many of the characters were distilled down to one character trait (our already two-dimensional animated favorites have now become one-dimensional). The story opens with a tablet, yes, a tablet instead of a book and is riddled with modern day slang. I really miss period pieces.

The Evil Queen, played by Kathy Najimy, seems to have let her obsession with beauty go (and let herself go). Jafar is now a pickpocket and salesman. Cruella has a squeeky toy dog as a companion. And Maleficent, played by the always wonderful Kristen Chenoweth, is mostly intact though speaks in modern tongues. Maleficent gets one decent number in the movie, but nothing that lasts. Not sure I'm a fan of the casting overall for the villains, or perhaps they were just written poorly. Even Belle and the Beast were off. Again, these are the characters by namesake only.

Now for their kids. It seems the formula for the children's names is to take the first letter, or first few letters and come up with something. Let's see, we have Mal, Maleficent's daughter. There's Evie, daughter of the Evil Queen. Jay, the son of Jafar. And of course, Carlos, the son of Cruella De Vil (who is largely wasted in this film). Do they have other parents? Are they all single or divorced parents? Who knows! We never get that explained. We just know that they seem to live in poverty and have given up all the wicked ways. Unfortunately, all of the kids were not that interesting to watch either. Jay was a jock, Carlos was a wuss, Evie pretended to be shallow and dumb, and Mal was unsure about her path. Mal, at least, had a story arc. The others were just there.

What we do get explained in tedious musical numbers is that love conquers all. The music was fine. But this was not the type of music that moved the movie forward, helped develop character or plot, or were even spectacular to listen to. They were pop songs disguised as a movie. I wasn't impressed. Poor Alan Menken and Howard Ashman and the Sherman Brothers.

The only real stand-out child was the son of Dopey. He actually looked and acted like he might be the progeny of the dwarf. His story just kind of doesn't get resolved though. Too bad, he was a warm spot in the film.

I can't say I liked much about this DCOM. It seemed like it was mostly a response to the After Ever High Toy Line. It seems like it was done hastily and gave little regard to the source material. I guess that's fine if that is what they were shooting for, but it had a lot of missteps along the way. Then again, if this was the launching platform for a new series, then mission accomplished. The High School Musical crowd is going to love it.

I was looking forward to this being a franchise I could get behind, but I'm not sure I want this kind of treatment of the characters. It seemed lazy and rushed.