Descendants

For its 2015 movie musical, Disney Channel tries to make some familiar Disney characters into a “High School Musical” type story and the results disappoint.

At almost two hours, “Descendants” feels too long and completely intentional (Rob Owen noted in his review, “A final-seconds tease of a potential sequel seems like a grafted-on afterthought that is particularly presumptuous”).

Owen noted, “Director/choreographer Kenny Ortega, who made “High School Musical” a hit, is hamstrung by a paint-by-numbers plot in a script by writers Josie McGibbon and Sara Parriott, veterans of “The Starter Wife” and “Desperate Housewives.”” The songs are done far apart and few of the songs are catchy or memorable.

The movie’s story is smart though: Disney villains Maleficient (Kristen Chenoweth), the Evil Queen (Kathy Najimy), Cruella de Vil (Wendy Raquel Robinson) and Jafar (comedian Max Jobrani) have been banned to an island away from the fantasy mainland of Auradon, where Ben (Mitchell Hope), the 16-year-old son of Belle (Keegan Connor Tracy) and former beast King Adam (Dan Payne) from “Beauty and the Beast,” is about to be named king.

For his first rule, Ben wants to give the children of those four Disney villains a chance at healing on the mainland at his prep school.

Maleficient’s daughter, Mal (Dove Cameron), is somewhat the leader of the pack, along with Evil Queen’s daughter, Evie (Sofia Carson), Jafar’s son, Jay (Booboo Stewart) and Cruella de Vil’s cynophobic son, Carlos (Cameron Boyce).

The four start off by singing how bad they are (I’m rotten to the core/I’m not like the kid next door), but this is Disney Channel so by the end of the movie you know they will be making themselves good, mainly Mal, who falls in love with Ben. (“I can look into your eyes and tell you’re not evil,” Ben assures Mal.)

“Descendants” lets Kristen Chenoweth have a song, and for nostalgic reasons the Auradon Prep Family Day has a hip-hop version of Be Our Guest from “Beauty and the Beast.”

Owen ended his review by saying, “While “High School Musical” couldn’t lay claim to staking out new territory in teen drama, it benefited from a lack of TV musicals at the time of its pre-“Glee” premiere, a fresh cast with chemistry, and some toe-tapping earworms. These elements made “High School Musical” a fresh attempt to push the Disney Channel movie form through experimentation. The dull “Descendants” has none of that; it just seems like a widget – albeit an occasionally cute, harmless widget – churned out by the Disney machine.”

Now look, as smart as this idea may be, I still couldn’t find myself getting into this. Everyone acts like they are just following directions to a stage show, which I can’t blame them, as they are all doing the best they can. I just don’t really like the way this turned out. However, I know that people like this movie, so people can check it out, as it’s not one of the worst I have seen, but if you don’t want to see it, it won’t hurt you. If you feel you will find this boring and dull, it’s best you don’t see it then.

Look out tomorrow when I look at the sequel to this film in “Disney Channel Original Movie Month.”