On one level, the total artistic failure of Wish is reassuring because it shows there are occasions when vast amounts of money and supposed expertise really don’t make a difference.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 29, 2023

On the basis of its half-thought-out script, Hollywood writers’ fears of being supplanted by artificial intelligence appear well-founded. This movie seems proud, even smug, about recycling scraps from other fairy tales.

| Dec 5, 2023

Despite the passive nature of his foul(ish) scheme, Magnifico is Disney’s best villain since Tangled.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2023

One can understand how some will view all of this with great cynicism, but come on: Wasn't there a time when you wished upon a star?

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 28, 2023

Just like The Marvels, Wish is an emotionally inert and personality-free movie that appears to have been assembled from the outside in.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 28, 2023

For a film that’s meant to sum up a century’s worth of groundbreaking animated feature production — the song “When You Wish Upon a Star” is even baked into Disney’s corporate logo — Wish plays more like a collection of deleted tracks than greatest hits.

| Nov 27, 2023

The movie is so busy referencing the classics, it makes itself an afterthought.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 27, 2023

Disney celebrates its centenary with a grimly cynical marketing exercise wrapped in the sparkly cloak of an escapist animated fairytale.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 26, 2023

A lifeless, focus-grouped attempt at throwing back to the classics.

| Nov 25, 2023

You can probably guess how things turn out in "Wish"; one thing about assembling a new movie from parts of old ones is that it's going to have a hard time surprising us. But that worked — for me, at least — because nostalgia is the point of the movie.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 25, 2023

This fairy tale feels more like a corporate product than a magical event; it’s a limp dissertation on Disney’s motto that, “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 25, 2023

The film will do well enough. But its backwards glances serve only to remind us how transcendent Disney animation once was – as recently as Frozen – without offering any hopeful signposts to the future. But, yes, cracking songs.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 24, 2023

If I judge Disney’s latest for what it is and not for what it may have been, I find it very difficult to tell potential viewers to stay away.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 23, 2023

Wish is a Disney fairytale set in a world that isn’t derived from a fairy tale source. The lore here is adapted from old Disney product, and the fairy tale references are to movies based on folk tales, not to the folk tales themselves.

| Original Score: C- | Nov 22, 2023

Well, it’s a big swing, anyway, even if it’s a miss: Disney’s latest animated effort goes full Carl “We Are Star Stuff” Sagan and takes aim at the Judeo-Christian God.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 22, 2023

Wish doesn’t quite reach the stars, but it does shine intermittently while introducing another plucky teenage female heroine, gamely voiced by Ariana DeBose.

| Nov 22, 2023

A collection of tropes with a good singing voice.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 22, 2023

Wish manages to be none of the things it wants to be. It is neither evocative enough of the past to work as a tribute, nor irreverent or inventive or just plain funny enough to justify its constant but half-hearted callouts.

| Nov 22, 2023

Asha is an endearing heroine, unsure about herself but always sure about what is right, just as we would hope as Disney starts on its next century as the gold standard in family movies.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 22, 2023

As far as birthday celebrations go, “Wish” is about as special as throwing your “I’m a century old!” bash at a rest-stop Arby’s.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 21, 2023