Encanto Movie Review: At this point Disney has perfected making highly enjoyable family oriented animated films. All these films follow a particular formula and provide a fun, enjoyable ride. With Encanto, we get exactly that. The film still follows the same Disney formula of finding an odd one out in a community and building their story, but it still surprisingly keeps a lot of things fresh. Encanto Trailer: Disney’s New Film Is About an Extraordinary Girl Who’s on a Mission To Save Magic! (Watch Video).

Encanto takes place in the mountains of Columbia where there is a small magical village. At the head of the village is the Madrigal family. The Madrigal family possesses a magical candle that provides the family with magical powers. Everyone in the family, except one, has magical powers. The one who doesn’t, leads our story and finds herself to save the magic while simultaneously saving her family and the village as well.

Well this point feels redundant now for every Disney film, but honestly the animation here is spectacular. Disney again raises the bar of what can be done and does it ever so effortlessly. The village, where the majority of Encanto takes place, feels wonderfully vibrant and so well thought out. It's filled with colour and excitement around every corner and there is so much life present to it.

Talking about excitement, the characters are quite well rounded too. Mirabel voiced by Stephanie Beatriz is surely the highlight of Encanto here. Mirabel’s sadness of not having magical powers is a huge theme and the way it is tackled is quite impressive. The rest of the cast is great too. With each and every family member having specific powers, it was fun to see in some scenes how they worked and exactly how each one of them used it to serve the village and its people. My favorite aside from Mirabel is Luisa, voiced by Jessica Darrow. Luisa’s powers are that of having super strength, and honestly at times she was quite funny too.

Watch The Trailer:

The story also really provides a great theme here. Most of Disney’s animated films see their main character on a journey of self-discovery. Talk about Frozen or Tangled, that one theme of self-discovery is always present. In Encanto that theme is still there, but rather it somehow still feels fresh because it’s not just the discovery of Mirabel alone, but in many ways for the Madrigal family too. It feels fresh in that regard and I appreciated how it all wrapped up and it had a really sweet message at the end too. This also feels relatively smaller scaled than other Disney animated films. Where characters would go on a huge journey, here the story is maintained in the Madrigal household. This lends itself to the story being more personal and I felt more attached to it.

The songs also help give a great mood to the story. The film opens up with a bang as the song “The Family Madrigal” bursts through. It gave the opening scene such a sense of rush and helped introduce the characters too. I mean it’s a Disney film, of course Encanto is bound to have some amazing tracks to it. Lin-Manuel Miranda produces a great soundtrack which again proves why he is the go to guy for musicals. From his work here and in Tick, Tick… Boom!, he is surely having one hell of a week. Encanto: Lin-Manuel Miranda Reveals How He Got Inspired to Compose Music for Disney’s Upcoming Animated Film.

But, not all is right in Encanto. With the story being more smaller scaled than usual Disney films, you see more of the side characters over here. With that, I expected a lot of them to get more character development than just being comedic relief in a lot of the scenes. Like Luisa has quite the conflict at the beginning of the film, but it never is fully explored with her. While resolved, it just feels like a character moment that was taken away from her. Same with Maribel’s parents, there is a sense of conflict within the family that it's building up to, but it rather just ends up getting brushed aside. I would have liked to see there being more depth to some of the members of the family.

Yay!

Great Animation

Colourful Characters

Amazing Soundtrack

Heartfelt story

Nay!

Some Characters Weren’t Explored Much

Final Thoughts

Encanto is another home run for Disney. With some great balance of humour, emotion and fantasy, Encanto tells a heartfelt story that provides a really sweet message at the end. If you want to kick up your mood on the weekend, then Encanto is definitely worth your time.

Rating:4.0

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 24, 2021 03:21 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).