Perhaps it is presumptuous, but it’s entirely possible that anyone reading this grew up at least aware of Disney. We have gotten to a point where the studio is now older than the vast majority of the global population, which is both a thrilling fact, and an opportunity to reflect on what this company has represented for the past century. In this year of the 100th anniversary of its founding, Disney set out to make a very special film that would pay tribute to all the exceptional work that has been done by legions of creative individuals over the decades. These efforts manifested in Wish, which has been proclaimed as their centennial celebration, a film that brings together everything that we have grown to love about these films, telling a single coherent story about a magical kingdom in which wishes are the currency used to keep the population optimistic and joyful. However, as someone who grew up with the studio’s films, and who constantly seeks out every film they make, it has become more than disappointing to see Disney become a shadow of its former self – their films are still entertaining and have moments of being genuinely endearing, but they have lost that lustre that made them so incredible at the start – and despite being a work designed to celebrate this enormous milestone, Wish not only fails to live up to expectations, it becomes one of the weakest films the studio has ever produced, standing amongst some of the most diminished offerings we have seen hailing from a studio known for its quality. A comparatively minor work that joins many recent films that have proven to be more disappointing than they are worth our time, Wish is far from the kind of product we’d expect from Disney, who seems to have grown complacent in the knowledge that they have an endless stream of brand loyalty, and thus can craft something that only marginally hits the intended targets, and ultimately proves to be a more frustrating affair than anything else, which is one of the many aspects that prevent this film from being anything more than yet another lacklustre effort that doesn’t live up to the expectations on which it was built.

Perhaps it may seem odd to cite all the problems with Wish as being due to the studio itself – after all, they are only in charge of producing the film, rather than writing and directing it. However, this film is so clearly designed to meet specific corporate criteria, that it would not be surprising to discover the screenplay was written using having the board of trustees yell out random plot points in whatever boardroom served as the zone of conception. This is a paltry effort that can only be partially blamed on directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn – the former having helmed several ambitious films for the studio in the past (including Tarzan and Frozen, one of the company’s most successful and acclaimed films), a latter a hard-working animator making her directorial debut – and screenwriters Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore, since they seem to merely have been commissioned to helm this project, which turns out to be quite a heartless affair, at least in terms of how it handles certain elements that would have been easily overcome in earlier years. We are at the point now where this company cares more about their collaborators towing the party line and protecting the brand than it is willing to embrace unique perspectives, which can be stifling to artists who are conflicted between having their name attached to a major production, but at the expense of losing artistic control, or at least as much as they would have had in previous years. Caring too much about one’s legacy can lead to laziness, and it sometimes feels quite self-congratulatory, especially when it comes to writing a story that feels genuine and interesting, something that never quite happens for the duration of this film, which is about as complex as it is unique – which is to say, neither of them apply to any particularly notable degree. It’s not a film that feels like it comes from the heart, and it never comes across as caring enough about the story to be considered a worthy celebration of their centennial – but unfortunately, this is the nature of studio politics, and it can feel like quite a meandering affair for most of its duration, which is not something we necessarily want from such a film.

Musically, Disney has always had a knack for creating memorable films, and they truly are amongst the final studios intent on creating original musicals. However, this isn’t an aspect that is particularly worth celebrating with Wish, since it is a rare misfire in terms of both the songwriting and storytelling. To bring this story to life, musicians Benjamin Rice and Julia Michaels were brought in to write the music – and if anything, their work makes us lament for the era where the likes of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman or Elton John and Tim Rice (or even Phil Collins, for all the criticisms levelled against Tarzan, his score was impeccable) were in charge of the music. Michaels, in particular, was a peculiar choice – without any history in either musical theatre or film, she was an odd candidate to write what is essentially a feature-length musical, and her status as someone who works mainly in pop is quite clear, since while the music itself is solid, the lyrics she wrote alongside Rice are amongst the weakest in Disney’s history – filled to the brim with cliches and seemingly written with a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus within reach, the songs in Wish are perhaps the one element that drags the entire experience down the most. Considering the scope of the music written in the past, these placid, uninspiring pop songs barely register, and can sometimes feel like a blight on the surrounding film, since hearing such ridiculous lyrics emerging from these characters destroys the illusion, and makes it very clear the shortcomings in perhaps the one aspect that could have salvaged this film, but instead had the complete opposite reaction. None of these songs is memorable, and they begin to blur together into one homogenous jumble of random lyrics and melodies that are serviceable at best, taking away the charm that could have helped elevate this film, since the story itself is not nearly strong enough to maintain our attention, and clear nor are the songs, which never quite hit the mark or make any substantial impact, despite their importance to the narrative, one of the many reasons Wish is an inferior effort from a usually stronger studio.

We can excuse a film having weaker songs if the two other most important aspects are of a high calibre. Unfortunately, Wish seemed to be banking on the music to drive the narrative forward, since there is a lack of a consistent story. At first glance, we may feel enthusiastic about this film only being 90 minutes in length (which would make it the first film Disney has made that has clocked in at under 100 minutes since Winnie the Pooh over a decade ago), until we realise that the reason for this isn’t the narrative economy, but rather the lack of a story. There is some level of hubris that comes when a studio decides that their source material is going to be their existing properties – considering that many viewers have expressed the desire to see Disney produce more original works, the idea of circling back and emphasising their creations as the foundation of this film feels quite over-confident. While it does make sense in theory, the execution showcases how this is perhaps their weakest effort to date in terms of a narrative. The emotions are also not genuine – in fact, they’re quite shallow, and the lack of interesting characters means that there is nothing onto which we can latch to help guide us through this story, with our experience being one primarily made up of seeing how far this film can go in terms of highlighting its ingenuity, which navigates a very narrow tightrope between confidence and arrogance, and ultimately it doesn’t feel like it veers towards the positive on many occasions. It isn’t emotionally manipulative in the way that it could have been, but it is a chore, and even at the relatively short running time, it never amounts to anything of value in terms of how it navigates a supposedly complex story, which is in reality nothing particularly special. It may be harsh, but since the film tends to feel quite weak in terms of both the narrative and the emotions that accompany it, we can understand the frustration that comes packaged with this middling film.

Who could have ever thought that we would get to a point where not only do we struggle to muster up any enthusiastic commentary about a Disney film, but actively feel disappointed in the entire direction the studio has gone? It might even be possible that they are past the point of no return since it seems they are resting on their laurels far too heavily, and they are frankly growing quite lazy. Wish is the most recent example of this concept, being a film that falls apart from its very first moments, despite the ambition behind its premise. Unfortunately, the excitement from seeing a new Disney film has now been replaced by the desperation to find one that can stand at the same level as the works that made them arguably the most financially successful and culturally significant animation studio in history. Some may feel some sense of schadenfreude in knowing that an extraordinarily powerful studio has fallen so immensely, but this is not cause for the death knoll to be rung just yet since there are elements scattered throughout this film that are quite lovely, even if they are not sufficient to make up for the areas where the film is most clearly deficient. The animation is quite striking, but I do feel a lot more could have been done in a film that was initially marketed as being at the perfect intersection of hand-drawn and computer-generated animation since it is beautifully made, but nothing that seems to be particularly special, especially not for a film that was supposedly the amalgamation of a century of animation. As a whole, Wish is a disappointing film – narratively weak, emotionally shallow and filled with mediocre songs that are instantly forgettable, it aimed to be a tribute to a century of Disney, but somehow seemed to miss the mark on nearly every element that made their films special, which is deeply upsetting considering this is supposed to be a celebration of their history that stirs enthusiasm rather than evoking nothing but apathy and complete ambivalence.