THE Walt Disney Company celebrates its 100th anniversary this year with the new fantasy musical animated feature 'Wish'.
Taking its cue from Pinocchio's classic tune, 'When You Wish Upon A Star', the story revolves around the themes of dreams and wishes.
King Magnifico, who has been scarred by war as a child, later establishes the island Kingdom of Rosas with his wife Queen Amaya somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
Now a great sorcerer, he rules over his subjects by extracting their innermost wishes for safekeeping when each resident turns 18.
He then has a ceremony every month to enable a wish to be granted to an individual that he selects.
The heroine of the story is a bubbly teenager named Asha, who has an interview with Magnifico for the position of apprentice.
Things don't go too well when her request for the king to grant her grandfather his wish as he celebrates his 100th birthday is declined.
When she uncovers the truth about the actual situation — Magnifico hoards the wishes in order to keep his subjects docile and dependent on him — Asha runs away.
With no one believing her, the desperate teen makes an impassioned plea and wishes to the starry sky for a solution.
This results in an actual star that falls from the sky to help her in her quest to free the people by returning all of their wishes to them in order for everyone to realise their dreams for themselves.
Along the way, a threatened Magnifico resorts to forbidden dark magic to maintain his grip over the kingdom.
Now Asha must work together with her friends and the people to make things right again by returning the light to the land.
As a celebration of Disney's milestone, 'Wish' features numerous references and Easter eggs that many longtime fans will instantly notice.
From 'Bambi' and 'Peter Pan' to 'Snow White', 'Fantasia' and more, these tributes are imbued within certain characters, dialogue, scenes and situations for that nostalgia factor.
Even the computer-generated images harken back to Disney's traditional style of watercolour animation complete with a slight jerky motion.
The various characters and enchanting adventures bring the simple story to life but the colour setting could have been brighter and the palette more vibrant.
Although there are some crucial scenes featuring interesting song-and-dance moments that propel the story and express the various characters' feelings, the magic of those sequences is somewhat let down by the music.
Unfortunately, the decent tunes are not that memorable, unlike some other more recent work such as 'Encanto'.
But there's still plenty to enjoy with this latest instalment of Disney's animated feature films.
At roughly 90 minutes, 'Wish' whizzes by breezily and will provide pretty solid entertainment for the entire family as well as those still young at heart.
NOW SHOWING
WISH
Directed by Chris Buck, Fawn Veerasunthorn
Featuring the voices of Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral
Duration: 134 mins
Rating: P12
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