Ordinarily, I wouldn't review a TV Movie for this site, and I especially hope to avoid any and all Disney Channel Original Movies, because more often than not, they tend to not be original at all and borrow from tired and used cliches that even Hollywood is sick of. But I chose to make a specific exception for the movie Descendants, which in a fabulous stroke of 90 minutes, manages to demonstrate every single solitary thing that is wrong with not only Disney Channel, but also the Walt Disney Company in general. Once again, the people involved are on the threshold of a groundbreaking idea, but because of the restrictions they give themselves alongside the poor Disney Channel style acting from the leads and the Villains, combined with mediocre music, extremely odd costume designs, wooden characters, and managed to ruin almost an entire franchise to the point where I almost trashed every thing in my life Disney-related that was involved in this. It is THAT bad.
Plot: After the marriage of Belle and the Beast (who is still without a name), the couple unites the fairy tale kingdoms of old into one kingdom called Auradon, while banishing the multitude of Disney Villains to a slum-like island to suffer for their crimes without the ability to wield magic. This prompts four of the Disney Villains to unite: Cruella De Vil, The Evil Queen, Maleficent, and Jafar, all whom breed their children with the bitter hatreds that they have towards all things good and pure. Their children, Carlos, Evie, Mal, and Jay, are all invited to attend a boarding school by the son of Belle and the Beast, Ben, who hopes to extend an olive branch to the foe's children. Maleficent chooses to take advantage of the situation and have their children steal the wand of the Fairy Godmother and free the remaining villains from their prison.
The villainous children all attend the school while plotting to steal the lamp and undergo almost every single "High School Movie" cliches, such as the popular boy falling in love with the loner girl (Mal), the pretty girl (Evie) falling in love with a geek, the aggressive teen taking on sporting events (Jay), and the scrawny kid becoming a hero in the big game (Carlos). The more they interact with the kids at the school (who are all descendants of the Disney Characters), the more the villainous kids begin to question if their parents are worth the effort.
What's Wrong?: Where do I begin? I guess I have to start with the thing that turned out worst, and that was Mal. Until the halfway point, Mal was the best thing in this movie. She was manipulative, took advantage of every situation, and aspired to be as feared and hated as her mother was. But as soon as she used a love potion on Ben, it all went down hill. No longer was she the badass girl that could do no right. Now, she was a Disney Princess who dressed like a goth chick. She sang songs about not wanting to be bad and wanting to be accepted, falls in love with Ben, and even decides to stand up to her mother. Why was all of this necessary?
Simple storytelling logic would make Mal out to be someone who didn't want attention and wanted to lurk in the shadows. Perhaps because she is so defensive, Ben would want to try to lower her defenses and get to know her, but she continues to resist, until having to choose between her loyalty to her mother and her friendships with her new friends. But instead, we get the typical Disney Princess formula with no twists or turns at all.
I also have to comment on the Disney Villains, all of whom are absolute shells of their former selves. Putting aside the fact that Cruella De Vil was chosen as a villain over someone like Ursula, Lady Tremaine, Dr. Facilier, or Mother Gothel, all of whom had stories that took place in Fairy Tales, the villains are all shells of their former badass selves. The Queen is only obsessed with outer beauty, Cruella hates animals, Jafar is greedy, and Maleficent has been watered down so much that she is pretty much just Ursula mixed with that dumb doctor from Phineas and Ferb. Of all of the villains chosen, Maleficent was probably the LEAST theatrical. Her lines and persona were more of a Shakespearean angle than a musical theater angle (where Jafar and Ursula could be found), and since this is a musical, shouldn't you pick a theatrical villain over a Shakespearean? Maleficent singing is comparable to Batman doing a tap dance routine, or Spider-Man being on broadway.
There is also a social problem that I observed while watching this film. That is this notion that people are just inherently evil and all who are like this deserve to suffer and all the innocent and nice people of the world should be praised and rewarded. My problem with this is the fact that all of the children and even some of the actual characters who are supposed to represent this notion are stuck up, snobbish, preppy turds that really don't deserve respect. If this movie could tell me why I'm supposed to root for any of these characters to become good when the people who are supposed to be "good" are stuck up, arrogant, and completely inept, and why I shouldn't root for the bad guys (WITHOUT TELLING ME THAT IT'S JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL) I would seriously appreciate it. I cannot bring myself to root for the forces of good because they are what I described above and if I cannot root for the villains for anything outside of nostalgia, who the hell am I rooting for?
Plus, the music is obnoxious. My close friend Deetzy described this movie to me as "High School Musical meets a Renaissance Faire", and I didn't believe her at first, but it really was. None of the songs are tolerable by any means and don't even properly represent these characters. The song "Rotten to the Core" is supposed to describe the little hell spawns as absolutely irredeemable, but we obviously know Disney is not that ballsy. They can't even do original Classic Disney Songs right. I swear when they performed that hip hop version of "Be Our Guest", Howard Ashman rolled over in his grave.
The costumes are also distracting, chewing out almost all of the scenery and scenes all the time. We're unable to immerse ourselves in these worlds because none of our main characters dress like actual humans do. Seriously, look at those costumes above for a minute. Would any reasonably minded person dress like that? This isn't the Mushroom Kingdom, it's a prep school damnit! Do these kids really evoke the Disney Villain personas so poorly that the feel the need to have them dress exactly like their parents or their parents after overdosing on drugs? WHY DOES THE QUEEN'S DAUGHTER HAVE BLUE HAIR? WHY IS MAL'S HAIR PURPLE? WHY DOES JAY ACT MORE LIKE ALADDIN THAN JAFAR? AND WHY IS CARLOS WHITE AND HIS MOM BLACK WITHOUT ANY SERIOUS EXPLANATION? CRUELLA DE VIL WAS THE PASTIEST DISNEY VILLAIN THIS SIDE OF FROLLO, YET SHE'S BLACK NOW?
I have one last thing to gripe about. This shitty film has something in common with another shitty TV Movie made by another channel: The Fairly Odd Parents: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! We'll be talking about that festering abomination at some point, but the characters act so over the top and obnoxious, that the main complaint was why on earth was this not animated? The climaxes of both these movies are so fake and disgusting that I wonder why did they not make these films animated? Apparently, Disney figured this out and has since made animated shorts that would have made this film at the very least tolerable. Plus, you probably could have hired those voice actors on the cheap. Hell, Susan Blakeslee voices Maleficent, the Queen, and Cruella De Vil in most Disney products now, and Jonathan Freeman is STILL portraying Jafar twenty years after he first did, You could have made it a musical, even a crappy High School Musical, but it needed to be animated for it to have any relevance to the original stories.
What's Good?: Hopefully, it will fade into obscurity and never be mentioned again...
Overall: Disney XD may be slowly turning the corner towards relevancy with big hit TV Shows like Gravity Falls and Star vs The Forces of Evil, but this proved to me that Disney Channel is dead and in need of a seance. This network once provided people with family entertainment that could be enjoyed by boys, girls, teenagers, and adults alike. But now, I can say without a doubt that the channel is pandering to toddlers and teenage girls. No one else would find this remotely entertaining. And if Descendants is not the perfect metaphor for a fallen star, I don't know what is...
Final Grade: F -
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