*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Encanto, released on November 24, 2021, is a Disney, animated film about the story of a girl named Mirabel Madrigal. She is born into a family where every child has a unique power that can help their village; every child except for her. Mirabel discovers that the family’s magic may be in danger when cracks start forming around a magical candle that, when lit, provides all of the magic to the family. When she told her family about what she saw, the cracks had disappeared and nobody believed her. Mirabel notices that her sister, Luisia, is acting strange and she questions why she is acting strange which she then reveals that Mirabel can find the answers in Bruno’s tower. Bruno is her brother who supposedly ran away after a bad vision he saw. She explores inside Bruno’s room and discovers shards of a broken vision, but when she collects them, the room begins to collapse and she just barely makes it out. Once she’s in the privacy of her own room, she pieces together a terrible vision.

For starters, I disliked the musical aspect of the film. When I first watched the movie, I was thrown off on why the music didn’t rhyme or flow. I later did some research on who wrote the songs and my questions were answered. The writer of the songs, Lin-Manuel Miranda, was also the writer who wrote the songs for Hamilton. After finding that out, the style of songs made more sense as to why they flowed the way they did. After a second viewing of the movie, knowing who the songs were written by, I paid more attention to the film and the meanings of the songs as opposed to how they sounded.

My critique on the movie was that it felt like the ending was rushed. Throughout the entire film, we watched a growing problem waiting to be addressed and fixed but nearing the end of the film, the massive problem had been resolved too quickly. It’s not a major issue, but it would have been nice to see some more time fixing all of the mistakes rather than a quick five-minute scene resolving an hour’s worth of problems. I enjoyed the film, but the end of the film threw off my overall thoughts on the entire movie, almost leaving a bad taste in my mouth. After looking back and rewatching it, Encanto is not a terrible movie; however the film was not a breath taker.

Looking past my critiques, Encanto is a good movie, and there are some really enjoyable moments, such as the introduction of all of the characters and the storyline. I would not say Encanto is the new Frozen or even a big hit, but it is still a nice movie to watch. For the people thinking that this will be the best movie they will ever watch, it most likely will not be. For casual viewers, this movie is probably for you.

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