The child’s gonna be positive. It’s the mother and father who usually are not all proper in “Spellbound,” a straight-to-Netflix computer-animated fairy story with a sensible idea (what’s a woman to do when her dwelling life is shattered?) and its coronary heart in the suitable place. If solely the film had been clear about its premise from the outset, versus burying the reason — as a real-world related twist — until practically the tip.
The movie takes place within the fantasy kingdom of Lumbria, the place the royal couple have been cursed. As soon as an inexpensive ruler, King Solon (Javier Bardem) is now a speechless blue beast — albeit the cartoon-cute model of a rhinoceros-size creature, sporting an endearing underbite and an simply distractable, dog-like character. His spouse, Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman), suffers from an equal affliction. Gone is the fair-featured matriarch, changed by a puffy inexperienced dragon with flamingo-pink feathers, gold horns and ridiculously small wings.
“Spellbound” confronts the couple’s transformation from the attitude of their succesful teenage daughter, Princess Ellian (Rachel Zegler), who sings “My Dad and mom Are Monsters” proper from the outset. It’s a intelligent means of framing the issue: You may assume you may have it dangerous, being grounded or ignored by your guardians, however Ellian’s mother and father are worse (“like, precise monsters”). For the previous 12 months, she’s been coping with the unfair burden of constructing excuses and cleansing up messes whereas her of us are out of fee.
At this level, in the event you had been to plug your ears and deal with the brilliant, bubbly visuals, you may assume you had been watching a Disney film. And in the event you had been to shut your eyes, the music (by eight-time Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken) would absolutely persuade you it was a Disney film you had been listening to.
Actually, “Spellbound” is the second function from Skydance Animation, the still-proving-itself studio the place John Lasseter landed after ankling Pixar. “Spellbound” marks a transparent enchancment over Skydance’s intermittently charming 2022 function debut, “Luck,” to the extent that it appears and feels prefer it may have been made by the Mouse Home.
The look says “Tangled,” the texture is extra “Magnificence and the Beast,” and the consequence has that uncanny close-but-not-quite sense of getting been workshopped a lot, it doesn’t in the end work. Nonetheless, you possibly can see what they’re going for — an educational lesson that’s extra related to right now’s children than any earlier princess film — and the music’s so robust (particularly the principle track, “The Method It Was Earlier than”), repeat viewing could resolve the issue that the movie’s level doesn’t reveal itself till fairly late.
The mission’s imaginative and prescient belongs to Vicky Jenson, greatest often called one in every of two administrators on the unique “Shrek.” Right here, she brings a extra reverent however equally trendy strategy to the animated storybook style whereas paying homage to its roots — or at the least its renaissance, through the second golden age of hand-drawn Disney animated options, which stretched from “The Little Mermaid” to “Hercules.” What these “new classics” (downright historic to this movie’s target market) had in frequent was Menken, who introduced Broadway-style songs to the equation.
These movies had been all musicals, and so too is “Spellbound,” which might absolutely be charting just a few of its tunes, if solely it had been debuting on the massive display screen versus streaming (the place “Luck” bought to Apple TV+, this one is unique to Netflix). The best way Jenson presents the story, what would historically be the primary act — the lead-up to the curse — is now offered in items all through the movie, with the strongest of these recollections addressed in Menken’s greatest new track, ”The Method Issues Have been Earlier than” (with phrases by “Tangled” lyricist Glenn Slater).
Practically half an hour into the movie, a drop of water falls on the uncovered strings of a damaged piano, crushed by one in every of Solon and Ellsmere’s fights. 5 occasions, it plinks the identical string, after which, as Ellian walks previous, a collection of drops strike six totally different notes — a fragile, virtually Studio Ghibli-esque intro to the emotional quantity. Zegler, who each acts and sings the difficult function (the place Disney motion pictures typically solid two voices), lifts the movie on this, its most magical second, which felt not sure of itself for a lot of the primary act however now takes focus: Now we acknowledge why Ellian will undertake a harmful journey to reverse the curse.
Tituss Burgess and Nathan Lane play the Oracles of the Solar and Moon, who learn as some cross between mystical monks and benevolent guncles, type sufficient to depart behind an enchanted key fob that makes the early going a bit simpler on Ellian. Accompanied by her lovely pet Flink (a purple, hamster-like critter with huge eyes and an urge for food for bugs), Ellian is pursued by a pair of Lumbrian ministers — fussy fortress adviser Bolinar (John Lithgow) and the extra belligerent Nazara (Jenifer Lewis) — who’ve hatched a plan to oust the king and queen and set up the princess of their place.
By a magical miscalculation, Bolinar and Flink swap our bodies, which provides a few of the movie’s funnier moments, in addition to a delightfully foolish facet quantity, “I May Get Used to This,” during which Lithgow warms to the concept of consuming worms. (May this 12 months probably yield a funnier rhyme than this: “I’ve gotta say, it’s greater than marvelous. How did I dwell my complete life larva-less?”?) So now the movie has two spells to un-bind: de-monsterizing Ellian’s mother and father and restoring Bolinar to his authentic physique.
With no standard villain, the film depends on one thing it calls “the Darkness,” depicted right here as a ticker-tape twister of unfavorable emotions, which threaten to deprave even the positive-minded Ellian. Relatively than spoil what all of it means, belief that the eventual clarification is a great one, with helpful classes to impart about how a lot children can (or ought to even attempt to) management when confronted with drastic household modifications. Ultimately, Jenson’s most radical twist on fairy-tale custom is the assumption {that a} pat “fortunately ever after” isn’t practically as useful as offering an instance of how to deal with unhappiness.