Punishment Review: Descendants

 This is the final atonement for my sin of having lost the Summer Box Office Challenge on The Movie Breakdown podcast.  It was chosen by Christopher's daughter, Danika, who wanted me to watch this film Descendants and enjoy it.  Well, I certainly did watch it.

The movie is set in the kingdom or something called Auradon, where all of the good people from Disney fairytales live.  Soon to be crowned king is Ben (Mitchell Hope), the son of Belle and Beast.  He decrees that some of the offspring of the evil villains, who are banished to another place or something, will be allowed to go to school at Auradon Prep.

He choses Mal (Dove Cameron, daughter of Malificent who is played by Christin Chenoweth), Evie (Sofia Carson, daughter of Evil Queen who is played by Kathy Najimy), Carlos (Cameron Boyce, son of Cruella de Vil who is played by Wendy Raquel Robinson), and Jay (Booboo Stewart, son of Jafar, played by Maz Jobrani).

Malificent wants to use the opportunity to get her daughter to thieve the fair godmother's magic wand and use it to free all of the baddies from their banishment.  Chenoweth is absolutely phenomenal in this role, and gives everything she can.  Dove Cameron does well as Mal, and there are a few more really good performances in there as well.

Within Descendants there are a number of songs, which is how it gets to be called a musical.  Each of these songs were written and sung, so that's a good thing.  Director Kenny Ortega, who also did the choreography, uses cameras and microphones to capture both the visuals and the audio (both of which are included in the movie).

Ortega cuts the story into something he calls scenes, where something will happen, or a person or whatever will talk.  Usually, there is another character in this 'scene' who will hear the words of the person who spoke, and they will then go on to interact with them.  All of these different 'scenes,' as described by Ortega an others in the industry, were then compiled together in a specific order to show the story for the home audience.

Each character we see are actually acting, and none of this is real.  A quick tumble through the Google tells that this is called 'fiction,' a story telling device that allows the regaler to create characters and plots that have never actually happened in real life.  Ortega utilizes this freedom to bring a dragon to life, which flaps its wings at the end of the film.

Descendants is a movie, and it was made by Disney.  The songs exist, and so do the dance sequences.  Magical haircuts are handed out like candy, done so through the allowances of the 'fiction' format that is chosen.  This is definitely a movie, and it concludes to credits which identify those involved.

Rating - 2.5 out of 4 stars