The “Descendants” franchise has been successful ever since their first movie back in 2015. After their third movie was made in 2019, the cast was reluctant to make a fourth without their co-star, Cameron Boyce, who died shortly after the movie was released. Disney still decided to make a fourth movie with none of the original cast, except for China Anne McClain, who plays Uma, and Melanie Paxson as the Fairy Godmother. The fourth addition to the franchise was released on July 12.
To confirm that this wasn’t a true continuation of the three “Descendants” movies and rather a new story line, they titled the fourth movie, “Descendants: The Rise of Red” instead of “Descendants 4.” This new storyline follows the rebellious daughter of the Queen of Hearts, Red, who doesn’t want to be anything like her strict mom. Uma, who is left in charge of Auradon Prep, invites Red to join the school. Red meets Cinderella’s daughter, Chloe, who is a “goody-two shoe” princess that always follows the rules. Together, Chloe and Red must change the past to prevent a prank that made the Queen of Hearts evil to stop her from taking over Auradon in the future.
The main problem I found with this movie is the runtime was way too short. With a runtime of only 94 minutes, the ending felt too rushed and left viewers needing more from the story. The plot had a lot of potential but was executed in the wrong way, leaving the audience confused and thinking “Oh! So…that’s it?”
One of the most memorable pieces of the “Descendants” franchise is the soundtrack, butut without a good plot, the songs didn’t fully make sense. Because this movie had a weak plot, the songs felt out of pocket and strange even though they were well-made. In the old “Descendants” movies, you didn’t find it as weird when a character just started singing. Here, it felt awkward when they began to. For example, this happened when Red was fighting with her mom in the carriage and she turned away to start singing randomly. I understand it is a musical, but they could have executed it better. I liked Red’s opening song, though; it was catchy and gave off the same feeling from “Rotten to the Core.” “Perfect Revenge,” served almost no purpose to the story, because we never got to see the villains from the past pull any prank on the young Queen of Hearts afterwards. But, “Life is Sweeter” was cute, fun, and upbeat. Everything about that song was great except when Jasmine and Aladdin had a verse and called themselves “Jaladdin.”
I loved Red and her character design. Her outfits were very cool and fitted her character well. I loved her hair with her 2 red buns, her shiny top with puff sleeves, her mix matched red and black pants, and her layered pattern skirt. Red and her outfits definitely gave off true villain kid vibes and is a cool, fresh new character that lived up to the “Descendants” franchise well. I don’t have any problem with her; Kylie Cantrall, who played Red, did a great job with the role.
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the same way with Chloe, the daughter of Cinderella. I found the frizzy neon-cyan hair to be weird and out of place. It seemed as if her wig would change hairstyles every minute from being big and poofy to curly and relaxed. Chloe’s hair didn’t fit with the Cinderella image at all; I understand they did this to make the character pop more or use it for marketing dolls, but it would be better if they just gave her a normal brown or black hair color. Other than that, Chloe was a good character, and she had some nice character development towards the end of the movie, where she learned that being a good person is complicated and sometimes results in breaking the rules to help/save others.
Chloe wasn’t the only one with characterisation issues. It also didn’t make sense how the Queen of Hearts had straight red hair and tan but when she was younger, she was three skin tones lighter and had bubblegum pink hair. I get that it is supposed to be a shocker how those two are the same person, but they could have picked an actress that looked a little more like Grace Narducci, who played the young Fairy Godmother. She looked exactly like a young Melanie Paxson. The “villain” in the past, Uliana, also had poor character design like Chloe. They could have made her a little more distinguished from Uma but instead, they made her an exact copy, which doesn’t make sense because they’re two different people. Though I did enjoy the other past villains like Maleficent, Hades and Hook, they were only background characters.
This movie had a lot of little plot holes, especially when Red and Chloe went to the past. There, you could find all the original characters from classic fairy tales in high school. Though this was fun to see, it didn’t make sense. How were they going to experience their actual fairy tale stories if they all knew each other in high school? Where did the fairy tale stories come from then?
Without the main cast from before, the story didn’t feel right. Seeing Red and Chloe take Mal and Evie’s place just reminded us of the nostalgia of the old movies, taking away our focus from this one. Rise of Red could have been so much better if they increased their runtime. Because the film was so short, there was no time to develop a real climax scene or a proper ending. At the end of the movie, Uma tells us again, “You didn’t think it was the end of the story, did you?” Though “Descendants: The Rise of Red” is worth a watch, I think that the “Descendants” franchise has run its course and the story should have ended at “Descendants 3.” If there is a fifth movie, I hope the producers take more time and use the next movie to develop characters and finish their story, rather than use it as another cash grab.
