Love Disney and loved the concept. Plus not all the Disney Channel films are bad, few if any are "great" but some are watchable, and Kristin Chenoweth is always worth watching.
'Descendants' is a relative waste of pretty good potential. Some good things save it from being worse, but it is sad to see one of the better concepts of any Disney Channel film done not enough with. Here's the good things first of all. Chenoweth is the best thing about it, she is gloriously evil as Maleficent and she once again how enviously amazing a singer and song interpreter she is (one will not believe how such a big voice with a wide range of tone colour could come out of a 4 foot 11 petite woman like Chenoweth), regardless of how she's recorded and what song is thrown at her.
Fortunately, her musical number "Evil Like Me" is one of the film's better and catchier numbers and Chenoweth sings the heck out of it. A couple of the other songs are surprisingly tuneful too, "If Only" and "Believe" especially and the rendition of "Be Our Guest", while not in the same league as the original, is fun. There are some nice vibrant and suitably Gothic colours and sets as well as some nice energy and playful references to the likes of 'Hocus Pocus'.
Not all the songs work though. Some are not that memorable and have some cheesy lyrics and either over-kinetic or limp choreography while others like "Rotten to the Core" have a major cringe factor all round. The cast all do their best but are undone by most of the characters being blandly one-dimensional, with most of the villains being under-explored and the heroes not being given enough likable traits to be rootable. The only really interesting characters are Maleficent and the Fairy Godmother, while doormat-written-all-over-her-forehead Belle is especially wronged.
Too much of the dialogue is an excess of cornball cheese, while the story generally lacks imagination and under-cooks too many of some good ideas and replaces them with too much intelligence-insulting absurdity. The costumes look amateurish and bargain-bin-special quality and the lip synching is sloppy. The photography is slick generally but there are drab moments too.
Overall, watchable rather than rotten but has too much cheese and blandness and not enough nostalgia and imagination. 5/10 Bethany Cox
'Descendants' is a relative waste of pretty good potential. Some good things save it from being worse, but it is sad to see one of the better concepts of any Disney Channel film done not enough with. Here's the good things first of all. Chenoweth is the best thing about it, she is gloriously evil as Maleficent and she once again how enviously amazing a singer and song interpreter she is (one will not believe how such a big voice with a wide range of tone colour could come out of a 4 foot 11 petite woman like Chenoweth), regardless of how she's recorded and what song is thrown at her.
Fortunately, her musical number "Evil Like Me" is one of the film's better and catchier numbers and Chenoweth sings the heck out of it. A couple of the other songs are surprisingly tuneful too, "If Only" and "Believe" especially and the rendition of "Be Our Guest", while not in the same league as the original, is fun. There are some nice vibrant and suitably Gothic colours and sets as well as some nice energy and playful references to the likes of 'Hocus Pocus'.
Not all the songs work though. Some are not that memorable and have some cheesy lyrics and either over-kinetic or limp choreography while others like "Rotten to the Core" have a major cringe factor all round. The cast all do their best but are undone by most of the characters being blandly one-dimensional, with most of the villains being under-explored and the heroes not being given enough likable traits to be rootable. The only really interesting characters are Maleficent and the Fairy Godmother, while doormat-written-all-over-her-forehead Belle is especially wronged.
Too much of the dialogue is an excess of cornball cheese, while the story generally lacks imagination and under-cooks too many of some good ideas and replaces them with too much intelligence-insulting absurdity. The costumes look amateurish and bargain-bin-special quality and the lip synching is sloppy. The photography is slick generally but there are drab moments too.
Overall, watchable rather than rotten but has too much cheese and blandness and not enough nostalgia and imagination. 5/10 Bethany Cox