Skydance Animation’s Spellbound was a film that I was looking forward to seeing. Having been a fan of the studio’s debut film, Luck, I was pleasantly curious to see how their second feature would fare, especially since it was gonna be a princess story featuring songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater!
After having watched the film, here are my thoughts.
(Caution, there will be spoilers!)
Directed by Vicky Jenson, the film takes place in a magical kingdom filled with animal hybrids and…whatever species our main characters are supposed to be.
Princess Ellian, voiced by Rachel Zegler, has spent the past year taking care of her parents because they’re monsters. No, I mean, literal monsters!
Her parents, King Solon and Queen Ellsmere, voiced by Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman, respectively, somehow transformed into monsters a year ago and nobody is really sure why. Since then, the Princess and the royal ministers have tried to keep this transformation a secret from the kingdom.
Princess Ellian seeks out help from two Oracles, voiced by Nathan Lane and Tituss Burgess, who inform her that her parents were cursed by dark magic. The spell can only be broken at an enchanted lake known as the Lake of Light.
So, Princess Ellian heads for the Lake of Light with her parents, but not before the kingdom becomes aware of her parents’ transformation. Convinced that the king and queen are truly monsters now and can’t be reverted, the Captain of the Guards, voiced by Olga Merediz, chases after them to exile the monsters far away.
It’s up to Princess Ellian to help her parents remember who they were and break the spell before time runs out.
Overall, this movie was a mixed bag. What did I like about it? Well, the Alan Menken and Glenn Slater songs aren’t bad. Granted, this is probably the worst songs ever composed by the Alan Menken/Glenn Slater pairing, but even their worst is at least tolerable!
Step by Step and Remembering are probably my least favorite songs of the bunch, but I really enjoy I Could Get Used To This and My Parents are Monsters/My Monsters are Parents! The former has some clever rhymes (marvelous, larva-less) and limerick instances while the latter really explains the story of the film along with the feelings Princess Ellian is feeling regarding her parents.
Another thing I like about this film is its ending and this is where the spoilers come into play. Well, “like” is a big word, but I respect what the film did at the ending.
This is the only animated film (or probably even family film) I’ve ever seen where the parents actually split up at the end! Usually, these type of films end with them getting back together or they start out with the parents separated and they remain separated at the end. But, I’ve never seen an animated film before where they start out together and then break up at the end!
It’s a very mature lesson to teach in a film aimed for families in so much as sometimes couples can’t stay together and while life may be different, it doesn’t mean they won’t love you anymore. I can’t say I “liked” the ending as I still want my “happy endings” in films like this because that’s why I watch them, but I do give them big kudos for having tackled this message!
I guess the last thing I like about this film is Rachel Zegler’s performance. She gives a really terrific performance, both in voicing the Princess as well as singing for the Princess! The more I hear Rachel Zegler’s singing, I’m convinced that she’s a tremendously talented singer and can go places! I’m not a fan of comments she made related to Disney Princesses (or certain Disney Princess movies), but I do admire her a lot as a performer!
That’s probably all the positives I can think of though. I think this film suffers from really bad writing throughout its middle. It had a good premise and a solid ending, but the entire middle just felt muddled. Parts of it seemed to just take time for the sake of taking time while other parts felt like they were written by a kid.
For example, how exactly the parents regain the ability to talk and remember who they were just seem to come out of nowhere with no real satisfying explanation as to why! Even the whole reason why they transformed into monsters in the first place felt so deux ex machina-esque to me! And the journey to the Lake of Light felt less like a journey and more like a hike!
I also wish there was an actual villain rather than the message of “we’re the cause of our own problems”. I’m not against the message, but it just makes films more boring and uninteresting. Like just imagine, how epic of a villain song we could have gotten from Alan Menken and Glenn Slater!
Also, the animation style wasn’t anything impressive and felt incredibly simplistic, non-fascinating, and just generic. In a film with animal hybrids, literally nothing wowed me!
Even some of the side characters didn’t do anything for me and I felt they could have been done away with. I also wasn’t wowed by any other voice performance in the film. Either I thought they were bad or at best, tolerable.
All in all, I wasn’t blown away by this film and think Luck was a much better film! This film needed a few more rewrites and hopefully, the studio pays heed to make their future films better!
The Animation Commendation 
Sounds like it will at least keep my attention.
That’s one way to look at it.