“When the pressure to be royally perfect becomes too much for Mal, she returns to her rotten roots on the Isle of the Lost where her archenemy Uma, the daughter of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, has taken her spot as self-proclaimed queen of the run-down town. Uma, still resentful over not being selected by Ben to go to Auradon Prep with the other Villain Kids, stirs her pirate gang including Captain Hook’s son Harry and Gaston’s son Gil, to break the barrier between the Isle of the Lost and Auradon, and unleash all the villains imprisoned on the Isle once and for all.”
-IMDB, Disney Channel
Some thoughts from me (Potential spoilers below…)
This film is an improvement over the first film, partly because Disney Descendants 2 starts poking holes into that “Beast creates a Villain Prison camp” idea that went sort of unquestioned in the original film. Disney Descendants 2 brings us Uma, the daughter of Ursula who has a major bone to pick about Prince Ben not following through on his promise to bring more Villain kids to Auradon. The conversation between Ben and Uma is one of the highlights of the film, where Uma confronts Ben with a quiet fury about how it felt to see someone like Mal (Who ridiculed and ostracized her growing up) get a happy life in Auradon while she and everyone else on the Isle have seemingly been forgotten about. Ben tries to offer Uma a spot in Auradon, but Uma turns him down as she’s decided she wants to get there by herself. Uma could have been a very flat character in this film, but this one scene alone gives her a ton of depth. She’s someone who’s spent her entire life feeling trapped and being hurt by others, and it’s given her this great determination to save herself and the people she cares about.
One of my bigger criticisms about this film is the length… it just feels far too drawn out for the story it has to tell. This might be more of an issue with pacing than the duration itself, and I point the finger at the songs and dance sequences. The Disney Descendants series treats these moments as opportunities to show off the talents of the cast, and don’t get me wrong they are indeed very talented! But because the focus is on the singing and dancing it means the story often comes to a screeching halt during these moments, and for me that means I start to zone out of the film and start watching the clock wondering when we’re gonna get back to the plot. I much prefer song sequences that either continue the story in someway, or exist to convey the emotion a character or characters are experiencing. There are a few instances of the latter in the Disney Descendants series, but with rare exception those emotional song moments don’t really hit the sweet spot you need to really feel what the character is going through.
This film also has several subplots that, quite honestly probably don’t need to be in the film either… and I don’t mind subplots, but when a film already feels kinda long multiple subplots make it feel even longer. None of the subplots feel critical to the main plot, they mostly exist to give more character development to some of the side characters. Normally that’s not a bad thing, but because the subplots only barely tie into the main plot of the film it contributes to the feeling that there’s just too much going on here. It makes me think that these films might’ve been better off as a TV series where you could slow the pace down and take a few episodes to spotlight some of the side characters while maintaining an overarching seasonal plotline. For the record they did make an animated Descendants series, but it’s pretty separate from the film series aside from reusing the majority of the main characters, and isn’t required viewing for anyone interested in the movies.
Overall I guess I recommend this one for a movie night? But to be honest that’s more because this film is required viewing for the final movie in the main Disney Descendants franchise, which is definitely worth a watch. So I guess this film is sort of like a fun homework assignment, in that it’s overall not too bad, but at the end of a day it’s still a homework assignment that you have to do when you’d rather be playing video games or hanging out with your friends.
Bad Princess Movies 
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