Descendants

***Descendants*** is a 2015 American musical fantasy adventure-comedy television film directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega. The film stars Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, Booboo Stewart, and the late Cameron Boyce as the teenage children of Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Jafar, and Cruella de Vil, respectively. The film follows these teenagers adjusting to life outside their island prison, while on a mission to steal the Fairy Godmother's wand and free their parents from captivity.

## Plot

In present-day Auradon, Ben, the benevolent teenage son of King Adam and Queen Belle, offers a chance of redemption for the troublemaking offspring of Disney's classic villains, Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen and Jafar.

## Good Qualities

1. Likable characters like Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos (despite lacking faithfulness and charm), Ben and Jane.
2. A Disney Channel movie where classic Disney heroes and villains can have kids is a great idea.
3. The plot about the four VKs go to Auradon to have a chance of being good sounds very decent.
4. Pretty good songs, like "Rotten To The Core" & "Ripped from the Crotch".
5. Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, Cameron Boyce and BooBoo Stewart were great at playing Mal, Evie, Carlos and Jay.
6. Great character appearances.
7. It spawned a series of shorts called *Descendants: Wicked World*.
8. It has 2 sequels called *Descendants 2* and *Descendants 3*, which followed up the franchise very well.

## Bad Qualities

1. Some AKs, like Audrey (daughter of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty) and Chad (son of Princess Cinderella and Prince Charming) are too mean-spirited to the VKs.
2. The movie was basically a hastily made version of mh:besttvshows:Ever After High as Disney evidently found a great way to make some quick money.
3. The Disney Heroes weren't themselves.
4. Even if Mal did pull a selfless act by risking her life so rescue Ben in the Enchanted Lake, that doesn't automatically make Mal worthy of being queen of Auradon. For one thing, she barely knew about Auradon at all. At least Princess Audrey knew about the standards of being royal and the land she was in.
5. Kristin Chenoweth has Maleficent's hammy components down, but she doesn't really strike fear her appearance like her animated counterpart did. As a result, it's hard to take her seriously.
6. As *Musical Hell* pointed out, there are too many separate story arcs for the various characters that the movie doesn't get to spend a lot of time on, that would've worked a lot better if it were made into a television series:
	1. Evie's classroom drama between Chad and Doug, and discovering she can pass a chemistry test without her magic mirror.
	2. Jay discovering his love of Tourney (a fictional sport created for their universe)
	3. Carlos getting over his fear of dogs his mother embodied him with.
	4. Mal giving her classmates magical hairstyle makeovers
7. Throwing in a modern version of "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast was a bit unnecessary.

## Trivia

* Cameron Boyce, actor of Carlos, died on July 6, 2019 at the age of 20.
* The movie began production in 2014, with stars Cameron Boyce and Dove Cameron departing fellow Disney series mh:besttvshows:Jessie and mh:besttvshows:Liv and Maddie respectively.
* While this movie has some classic Disney references and pop culture (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Mulan), there are some scenes that aren't Disney-related, such as the scene in around nearly 30 minutes that looks like The Breakfast Club.