Descendants: Wicked Wonderland Film Review

It appears as if the Descendants franchise has now become one of those franchises where Disney doesn't even bother to put in the effort to tell you that there's a new film out. As there is a new Descendants film out right now on Disney+ and yet Disney did nothing to tell you that the film was even happening in the first place and well as i've reviewed quite literally all of the Descendants films from the very beginning all the way up to The Quest For Red you all just knew that I had to review this film the first chance that I got and so then join me as I review the film that shows off it's version of Wonderland with the film in question being called simply just "Descendants: Wicked Wonderland" enjoy.

The plot of this film is some time after the events of the previous film Chloe and Red find there friendship tested when they are forced to team up with other villain kids to stop an evil version of The Mad Hatter from taking over Wonderland. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty average at best. This films plot is at best a very paint by numbers plot as you know full well exactly where this films plot is going to go and what the big dramatic third act moment will be and sure enough it does go exactly where you think that it's going to go. However tho this is something that doe work well enough to the films advantage as the films plot is meant to be this things where you can work out what's going to happen next as alot of the fun and craziness of these films is seeing the off spring from other well known Disney characters with this being something that has always been the main draw of these films and whilst yes the original three films did have more of a focus on plot here with these last two films it does seem as if the focus is shifting to be more seeing the kids of Disney characters then in actually giving the films decent plot and while the previous film had the nostalgia factor working for it this film doesn't have that and therefor the issues with the plot do become a bigger issue as the films plot when it does get some focus is at best thin and not that very well thought out with the plot of this film not really being really rather entertaining and as well as not really being really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Kylie Cantrall as Red , Malia Baker as Chloe Charming and Liamani Segura as Pink. Also starring in this film is Leonardo Nam as Maddox Hatter , Brendon Tremblay as Max Hatter , Alexandro Byrd as Luis Madrigal , Kiara Romero as Hazel Hook , Joel Oulette as Robbie Hood , Zavien Garrett as Felix Facilier , Ryan McEwen as Squirmy Smee , Dayton Paradis as Squeaky Smee , Paolo Montalban as King Charming , Melanie Paxson as Fairy Godmother , Awkwafina as the voice of Chessy Cheshire , Rita Ora as Bridget and Brandy as Cinderella.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty average at best. This is something that is to be expected at this point as this is still a Disney Channel Original Movie and those don't typically have great acting in hem and yet at the same time this film  acting was alot more better then what you would expect it to be with this being due to the fact that alot of this films actors are reprising their roles not only from the previous films but from other Disney films as well and therefor they would have a good idea on how best to act as there respective characters. With the best actor in this film being Leonardo Nam as Maddox Hatter as it does seem like that he is the only one there that is actually excited to be there as he is having such a blast acting in this film and infact alot of his scenes are the some of the more fun scenes in the film to watch as you never really know just how really over the top that he's going to go with the performance and whereas with every one else you really do get the feeling that they'd rather be anywhere else except making this movie right now you do really get the feeling that he really is genuinely excited to be there and that is something that really does shine through in his final performance. With the acting that's in this very film not really being helped by the fact that this films script isn't that good as this films script doesn't give any of this films actors absolutely anything to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the over all quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGIA for this film is Embassy Visual Effects , Image Engine Design , 1.618 VFX , Mr. Wolf , Distillery VFX , Ingenuity Studios , Curated , Hinesight Productions , The Sequence Group and Industrial Light & Magic. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty average at best. The fact that this films CGI is pretty average is something that is both surprising and at the same time not all that surprising it's not surprising in the sense that this is a Disney Channel Original Movie still and those don't have great looking CGI in them as they don't have the budgets for that but at the same time the fact that they managed to to get ILM to do effects work for this film does make it all the more surprising that the films effects are as OK as they are in the first place. While alot f this films CGI is pretty decent as there are some good looking effects when we get to Wonderland alot more of the films effects are just painful to look at as they are really bad alot of the time which is something that does make sense as this is still a made for TV movie but this is a nig franchise for Disney and yet there still churning out effects that look really bad with there being an almost laughably bad CGI cat in the film with the film being obsessed with showing us CGI filled establishing shots and all of them look bad as they make it look like that the film was made ten years ago. Whilst we do get some decent looking effects in Wonderland like alot of the trails that come off of Bridgit's cards look really good the Maddox's spies look really good when the film does have a bad effect in Wonderland it doesn't cut away from it rather it keeps it on screen for a long while when all this does is just make the effect look even more worse.

The key theme in this film is bonds and the lengths that people will go to to keep them as we see Chloe go to great lengths to keep her friendship strong with Red whilst new character Pink goes to lengths to keep her bond with Red going and Max tries to get a bond going with his father Maddox. This is a goo idea as it is a theme that these films really haven't hit upon before now only due to the fact that the film feels more like a trailer for it's soundtrack it does mean that we have to fit in an overproduced song alot of the time when that time could have been used to better explore those bonds and what it is that they mean to those people as we know full well what Chloe and Red mean to each other thanks to the previous but we don't know that with any of the other characters. With the big third act drama being about as predictable as you think it's going to be with it also not really working due to the fact that the films plot doesn't really leave room for this kind of moment to work and heck the previous film even had a very similar scene in it therefor it makes it pointless for them to have a scene in this film where the same thing happens, whereas if the film did take to the time to fully flesh out this theme and show us what these relationships mean to all of the people then it would have made alot more sense as to why this moment happens in the first place as this is something that would allow for this theme to be fully explored as it is something that none of these films have explored until now with alot them exploring the found family idea and what it means to be a family both of which are good ideas but to see this film tackle a different them is a breath of fresh air even tho it does hugely drop the ball with it, with the only thing that could have fixed this issue is doing a page one rewrite of the films script as the theme itself is so tied into the plot that you can't fix it with just one scene.

This film is a musical with songs written by Michelle Zarlenga ,  Chantry Johnson , Mitch Allan , Antonina Armato , Tim James Price , Thomas Armato Sturges  , Adam Schmalholz , Jordan Powers , Josh Cumbee and Jaheem King Toombs. Even tho this films soundtrack is listed as being a pop album it's not a Disney version of rap and hip hop album wit all of the films songs sounding the exact same with there being nothing in any of the films that makes them stand out from each other heck there's not even a different genre of music it's all just the same bland and safe stuff that Disney can push on to kids with nothing new added to them that makes them stand out with things being made worse when you take into account that the film uses alot of autotune which does make it hard to judge the singing from the films younger actors. With the films only decent and decently sung song being "The Girl I Used to Be" which is a decently written song about two characters looking back on there younger lives fondly remembering who they used to be and how much simpler things where back then when compared to how they are nowadays with the song itself also being the best sung song in the whole entire film which does make sense as the sing is sung by Brandi and Rita Ora both of whom are decent singers that can more then hold a tune with this song being the only song that has no autotune in it and it's not that hard to see why as the two singers are just that good with them more the holding your attention throughout the entire song with this song feeling more like a pop ballad type with all of the other songs feeling like over produced badly done hp hop songs as this song actually does do what it set it to do and that's make you feel something for characters that didn't get alot of screen time in there adult forms in the previous film.

Speaking of the moms they actually get to do alot more in the film this time around whereas in the previous film they were basically there in just the opening and the ending. Here tho they actually play a bigger role in the films plot which was something that was kind of refreshing to see as given the fact that both of them are played by big named stars it would have been understandable if Disney only had them appear at the start and at the end again and then just use them for marketing purposes but no they actually do something with them and while that something mainly has them contained to just the one room with alot of there scenes together being them just acting with other it was still fun to keep on seeing more of them in the film. Much like with the previous film tho there is one character that did get done dirty and if you've seen the previous film then you'll know what character it is as it's the same character and it still makes zero sense as this character would of course want to help out due to the fact that they have a stake in this fight to and yet the film barely features the character with them oddly enough only appearing at the start and the end of the film with this person having a few lines of dialog near the middle of the film of the film which makes there inclusion pointless as there role in the film could have been played by anything other character in the film and it would have made just as much sense, this is something that wouldn't be a bad things if it meant that we got to see more of the friendship between Cinderella and Bridgit as in the previous film we really only saw them as friends when they were young therefor seeing them act as friends as adults would have been interesting but the film doesn't give them a moment where they discuss what it's like being friends with the other when that would have been interesting to see in the film.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and thirty five minuets and twenty eight seconds. This is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for these films with this film struggling to each that as the films has a song play every couple of minuets it seems which to be honest was getting rather frustrating as alot of the songs aren't that good with alot of the song running time being somethin that could have been use to give the films plot alot more more focus with it feeling lie that the makers of this film knew full well that the films plot wasn't that good and therefor they just stuffed the film with songs and hoped that they we wouldn't notice with the film not really having enough plot to cover that amount of running time with the film only having enough plot for about forty minuets with the films songs lasting around thirty eight minuets in total. With the film not really using it's running time all that wisely as the film doesn't take the time to fully develop its plot as the film doesn't take to the time to add things to its plot that make it feel well thought out and while OK fair enough this film is made for little kids ad with little kids in mind there still needs to be some amount of plot development happening with none of the films songs adding anything to the films plot either with it being clear as day that the makers of this film are alot more focused in playing a song every five minuets then they are giving us a well thought out plot. The same thing is also true for the films character development as none of the films characters have a scene where they get to well developed which s fair enough for characters like Red and Chloe where you could make the point that they got there development in the previous film but none of the films new characters get anything interms of character development either with the film being more focused on giving us a forced romance then it is in giving us character development but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to itt ho.

So now then as this is a comedy  that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. The film does have some cute funny moments in it and while none of the films jokes are laugh out loud funny there still and attempt in there to give the film some actually funny moments with alot of the films best moments comedy wise coming from new character Hazel Hook as she is a funny character that if they do another one of these films they have to keep her character as she was a breath of fresh air with her sarcastic sense of humor. With the films best joke oddly enough not featuring her character as it instead feature the Smee twins who like there father are bit short up top as when they are told by Hazel to go and climb to see where they are instead of climbing a tree as she had suggested they do they instead start climbing each other which is a pretty cute joke and it is something that there characters would do with alot of the films jokes revolving around how Hazel has to look after them with the only thing that made that funnier was if someone like Pink got in on the act as well as she is a new character in the film therefor it still would have worked for her character to give the Smees orders only for them to mess it up as that is something that would have made her character more entertaining to watch with the rest of the films jokes being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall if you liked the blandness and the nothingness of the previous film then your going to love this film but it is getting more and more clear that this franchise is in need of a shake up as this film does prove that it is running out of steam due to the fact that everything about this film is just so bland in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and a such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images hat I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very post being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.