Spellbound is not to be confused with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film noir of the same name. Nor is it to be confused with the 2002 spelling bee documentary of the same name. Nor the 2011 South Korean film of the same name about a man whose girlfriend can see ghosts. This is, in fact, the second film from Skydance Animation, the new animation outfit headed by former Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter, who left his previous company after allegations of sexual misconduct. Skydance seems to have deep pockets and grand ambitions of making moves on its competitors: its first film, the 2022 fantasy Luck, seemed to be an attempt to ape Pixar’s formula. This sophomore effort is going for the big guns: it’s the studio’s take on Walt Disney Animation.
There is much here that feels plucked from the Mouse House (even if its director, Vicky Jenson, has a DreamWorks pedigree, having previously directed the likes of Shrek and Shark Tale). It’s a high-concept high-fantasy, awash with Hans Christian Andersen-ian tropes, a European-style monarchy, a princess in a castle, and songs by — yes! — Alan Menken. They’ve even cannily hired Disney-princess-in-waiting Rachel Zegler in the lead role. She voices Ellian, a teenage royal in the magical kingdom of Lumbria who just wants to fly with her friends on her winged dragon-tiger beast (they have them there, it turns out). But, as swiftly explained in the zippy first expositional song, she is forced to hide the terrible secret that her parents are monsters. It’s a neat premise — like the private illness of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, crossed with the CITV sitcom My Parents Are Aliens.
What’s more commendable, in among all the fantasy flab, is an impressively emotional allegory about warring parents.
Ellian is a plucky hero designed to be as beloved to young girls as an Elsa, a Moana, or a Mirabel, and Zegler was born to voice a role like this. Skydance doesn’t mess around in the casting department, in fact: highlights among the voice actors include Broadway veterans Tituss Burgess and Nathan Lane, as the goblin-esque oracles, who sing the hell out of their songs, and make a nice meal out of lines like, “We didn’t travel all this way in a frog’s mouth for nothing!” There’s also a lovely turn from John Lithgow as a palace official magically turned into a “purple rat” granted the name Lord Candypants; and fun performances from Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Ellian’s parents, on both singing and monster-roaring duties.
It’s all as bright and cheerful and colourful as you’d expect. The animation is solid, if a little unimaginative — the character design is so clearly mimicking the Disney and DreamWorks approach that it hardly feels there’s been any evolution in years — but then, this is clearly a film that considers itself explicitly made-for-children. Rarely does it stop for breath before the next bit of action or singing begins. The dialogue is nowhere near Disney/Pixar standard, though. Jokes clearly written as appeasement for adults — one character simply says the line, “Colonoscopies!” — as a benevolent nod to the sleep-deprived caregivers watching don’t really land.
It’s occasionally bogged down, too, by an excessive fealty to its fantasy setting. Ellian’s journey is complicated by too much exposition and contrived peril: she must use a “magical fob” to travel to the ‘Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness’, and before then journey atop the ‘Last Mountain’ — and only once she makes it to the ‘Lake of Light’ will the curse be lifted. What’s more commendable, in among all the fantasy flab, is an impressively emotional allegory about warring parents. This is a stealth story about divorce, and how it adversely affects the child caught in the middle of it all. “Everyone has dark feelings,” notes one of the oracles; “it’s how you deal with them that counts.” There’s nothing more Disney than a valuable life lesson for kids — and that’s a laudable lesson for Skydance to get behind.