THB #261: I Love Musicals That Don't Suck

So many of my favorite people. So many happy ambitions coming together in unexpected ways. But sadly, both Disenchanted and Spirited seem so happy to be putting on a show in the barn (will anyone under 50 get that reference anymore?) that they forgot to make their screenplays work. They fail differently… though I desperately wanted to love both of them.

What they share is that, for all the fun, they both seem to be looking over their shoulder way too much. They both do stuff that is completely right. But they can’t seem to stop themselves from terrible, complicated choices that take the audience out of the flow.

Both have terrible titles that don’t really even make sense unless you connect the dots. But audiences shouldn’t have to work to get the title. Even “Disenchanted,” aside from the movie not matching the title, is a title that would work 2 years after a big hit… not 15 years later and we’re throwing nostalgia piece on Disney+ because Kareem really has no idea what opens a movie…