Okay where do I start, the premise is great in this movie, Adams character is dealing with a teenager who is tiring of her Disney Princess step mother, she wants to be normal but her new Mum's overbearing kindness is affecting her life, her desire to have a fairytale existence conflicting with teenager wanting to find her own identity. This was shaping up really well, Maya Rudolph being the queen of the town like a 'Why Women Kill' episode was looking to be interesting conflicting with a genuinely perfect Princess type moving in. Also the Dad catching the train to the city every day just to give them their perfect country suburbia life, it seemed like really interesting themes to explore in contrast to the previous movie.
Then something happened... maybe a Disney executive said it was too plain, needed more magic, needed to hammer home the theme of fairytale life being fake and embracing true family warts and all, but it ends up feeling like they are retelling the same beats of the first movie. It could have been great but too many effects, too many rewrites, results in a jumbled mess, which is hilarious because they did it to themselves. They had no limitations and they stalled the production for over 10 years then rushed it at the end which results in an entirely pointless venture. The best part was seeing Idina Menzel steal the show with her song, also the casting for the daughter was great, I thought it was the original actor she was so fitting. But again like her daughter in the first movie loved that she was a real princess, I appreciate that they kind of addressed this a bit in the script but still she knows Adams character, she knows where she is from, and she is surprised that she doesn't understand highschool? They could have really subtly made Adams into the mean step mother, that was a great idea but I feel it was better executed in earlier scripts, what we get is Adams wishing the town to be a fairytale and that is really where the film falls off the rails, the daughter suddenly happy to be in it singing? So what is the town possessed? Do the people not go to work anymore on the train? Unless you are like 12 you really can't help but wonder wtf is going on, why Adams can't control her behaviour and what it will mean for say Any of these townspeople's families outside the town? It's just a dumb literal plot device that ruins the whole movie, like they didn't get why the contrast of a Disney princess in gritty new york was entertaining, by making the real world into a fairytale what we get is a generic Disney movie, I don't know how they read the script and said yes this will work. I think it was more about retreading the same content in a different way and they failed terribly.
Finally Rudolphs son! What another missed opportunity, again they only have themselves to blame, they setup these interesting things then just bungle it repeatedly. Having the daughter attracted to the town queen son is interesting! They could have made Adam's attempts to impress result in her finding rivalry with this new town queen, they could have made that rivalry come between her daughter and her crush, could have made her into a bad step mother that way, and have to grow to accept her daughter is becoming an adult and will make choices she wouldn't. This could have been a nuanced wholesome movie about broken families and trying to live perfect lives that become dillusional in trying to prevent any conflict. I kind of want to track down the original script because I feel all of this was in there and they went an entirely different way. Turning Adams into an evil step mother could have been a great move in the right hands, but what we got was Gollum and Smeagol and I didn't care about anything she was doing because it wasn't her anymore, it wasnt anyone in the town, they were all possessed and that made it a really bizarre dark movie and to tie off this huge issue they just say oh they all think they were dreaming... What everyone? Except Adams and her Daughter? So this whole town lost like a week of their lives and they all had the same dream but no one questions this? The first movie was light hearted but it had logic and sense in the universe they created, this movie doesn't respect the audience at all, it wants to blast you with music and colours and hope you don't notice what a piece of trash it is.
Then something happened... maybe a Disney executive said it was too plain, needed more magic, needed to hammer home the theme of fairytale life being fake and embracing true family warts and all, but it ends up feeling like they are retelling the same beats of the first movie. It could have been great but too many effects, too many rewrites, results in a jumbled mess, which is hilarious because they did it to themselves. They had no limitations and they stalled the production for over 10 years then rushed it at the end which results in an entirely pointless venture. The best part was seeing Idina Menzel steal the show with her song, also the casting for the daughter was great, I thought it was the original actor she was so fitting. But again like her daughter in the first movie loved that she was a real princess, I appreciate that they kind of addressed this a bit in the script but still she knows Adams character, she knows where she is from, and she is surprised that she doesn't understand highschool? They could have really subtly made Adams into the mean step mother, that was a great idea but I feel it was better executed in earlier scripts, what we get is Adams wishing the town to be a fairytale and that is really where the film falls off the rails, the daughter suddenly happy to be in it singing? So what is the town possessed? Do the people not go to work anymore on the train? Unless you are like 12 you really can't help but wonder wtf is going on, why Adams can't control her behaviour and what it will mean for say Any of these townspeople's families outside the town? It's just a dumb literal plot device that ruins the whole movie, like they didn't get why the contrast of a Disney princess in gritty new york was entertaining, by making the real world into a fairytale what we get is a generic Disney movie, I don't know how they read the script and said yes this will work. I think it was more about retreading the same content in a different way and they failed terribly.
Finally Rudolphs son! What another missed opportunity, again they only have themselves to blame, they setup these interesting things then just bungle it repeatedly. Having the daughter attracted to the town queen son is interesting! They could have made Adam's attempts to impress result in her finding rivalry with this new town queen, they could have made that rivalry come between her daughter and her crush, could have made her into a bad step mother that way, and have to grow to accept her daughter is becoming an adult and will make choices she wouldn't. This could have been a nuanced wholesome movie about broken families and trying to live perfect lives that become dillusional in trying to prevent any conflict. I kind of want to track down the original script because I feel all of this was in there and they went an entirely different way. Turning Adams into an evil step mother could have been a great move in the right hands, but what we got was Gollum and Smeagol and I didn't care about anything she was doing because it wasn't her anymore, it wasnt anyone in the town, they were all possessed and that made it a really bizarre dark movie and to tie off this huge issue they just say oh they all think they were dreaming... What everyone? Except Adams and her Daughter? So this whole town lost like a week of their lives and they all had the same dream but no one questions this? The first movie was light hearted but it had logic and sense in the universe they created, this movie doesn't respect the audience at all, it wants to blast you with music and colours and hope you don't notice what a piece of trash it is.
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