Encanto Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. The Sometimes Clunky Story

While it seems like Disney has basically mastered the marriage of humanist themes with magical hooey by this point, that is probably Encanto's weak suit overall.

The frantic opening sequence delivers a rushed introduction to the Madrigal family and the magical house which grants them their diverse array of superpowers, the filmmakers basically telling us not to sweat the finer details of the internal logic because, apparently, it doesn't really matter.

The script never lays out a clear set of rules for the family's powers or the presence of the magic house - you really just have to roll with it and accept that it's a foundation on which the emotional familial story is told.

While the narrative admirably avoids Disney tropes in a number of ways, there are also times where it lurches from one revelation to the next in slightly clunky fashion, in large part because these supernatural affectations don't always cohere with the more relatable generational story.

It's certainly not bad, but compared to the film's other spectacular elements the beat-by-beat story is fairly surface-level and straight-forward.