Spoiler Alert

Descendants Wicked Wonderland:

Wickedly good, top-3 Descendants movie?

The Descendants franchise is something many current college students grew up watching. The first film came out over 11 years ago and spawned several sequels and a few television series.

Originally, the film series started as a trilogy, with Descendants 3 coming out in 2019. For many of the fans, and even a few of the actors, they believed this was where the story would come to an end.

The original fanbase was older; the cast could no longer pass for teenagers; and one of the stars, Cameron Boyce, passed away at age 20 a month before the third film’s debut on Disney Channel.

For five years, this was the end of the storyline. Other than a couple of short videos, the childhood series sat untouched. But then, in 2024, Disney announced the fourth installment of the franchise titled “Descendants: The Rise of Red.”

According to the Walt Disney Company, the fourth movie is the most-viewed Disney Channel Original Movie premiere ever on Disney Plus, with 6.7 million views in its first three days of streaming.

Fans debate whether the movie was any good, with older fans claiming the series lost a step, while newer fans liked the reboot and felt it was a good transition from the original series.

Regardless of your opinion of the fourth movie, the success of its streaming debut meant a fifth one would go into production. Coming out this summer, “Descendants: Wicked Wonderland” will continue the story from the end of the fourth one.

However, the debate about this movie seems to be not as loud as its predecessor. There are several reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that the story does not feel rushed.

In the fourth one, the story progressed along before it closed out very quickly with little reason as to why. The happy ending felt unearned and cheap. If the audience had left the room for three minutes, they could have missed the climax of the movie.

“Wicked Wonderland” does a good job of giving everything space to breathe. This allows the audience to feel connected with the characters and lets the characters grow throughout the movie.

In this film, the audience follows Red, the daughter of the Queen of Hearts, and Chloe, the daughter of Cinderella and Prince Charming, as they deal with the consequences of their actions in the fourth movie. Previously, they traveled back in time, and in doing so, they changed their present timeline.

Originally, the Queen of Hearts was a villain, making Red a VK, or villain kid. Also, Red was an only child. When the pair returned to the present, the queen is now beloved, no longer making her the villain of the story, and Red now has a younger sister named Pink.

With one villain gone, a new villain must fill the role. Insert the son of the Mad Hatter, Maddox Hatter. He witnessed the two protagonists leave the past, and it drove him crazy.

He became obsessed with finding the time-traveling device, a pocket watch, and restoring the original timeline. This is something new in the Descendants film I appreciated: a justified antagonist.

While not a new concept for the silver screen, this is arguably the first time we have seen it in this franchise. He wants to restore the life he lost, one where everyone loved him and his son, not despised them.

Maddox takes over Wonderland, closes the border between it and Auradon, locks the Queen of Hearts in her palace and searches the land for the pocket watch.

In response to his drastic actions, the villain kids, including his son Max Hatter, and the hero kids team up to take back Wonderland. The audience follows the high schoolers as they fight, both internally and against the goons of Maddox; reconcile; fall in love; sing and dance.

The songs in the fifth installment are significantly better. Some of the best scenes from the Descendants movies are the songs and the choreography.

This movie saw two songs go viral online and helped drive up viewership for the movie. One was Maddox’s song “Mad.” This song captures what Descendants is about, while also being very true to the character who is singing it.

The song is unpredictable, and this is thanks to the singer. Maddox will sing normally, switch to a playful-sounding voice, before dropping it low to mimic a monster or a demon.

In the song, we also see how Maddox’s behavior has affected his son, with Max declaring he is breaking free from his dad’s control. This song is one of the best villain songs in the franchise, possibly only trailing “What’s My Name” from the second movie.

The next song that went viral is “Did You Hear About Them,” sung by Hazel Hook, daughter of Captain Hook, and Luis Madrigal, son of Luisa Madrigal. This is a competitive argument song where both sides are trying to convince the other group why their top person would be the better leader.

It has a Latin-pop beat and a big dance break toward the end of the song, where the audience can truly hear the beat and appreciate the music. The song highlights the strength Luis inherits from his mother and the skills Hazel learned from working with her dad.

This is a fun song, but it also helps develop the plot. Red continues to struggle with her identity, as listeners hear as she flips between the two groups and sings in both verses. Meanwhile, Chloe feels neglected by Red and feels alone in this new world.

In summary, this movie is amazing. The songs are amazing, even the ones I did not name, with crisp choreography. The plot also makes sense, and it helps the characters feel thought out and developed.

In order from best to worst, the Descendants movies go two, one (top two could switch depending on the day), this one (five), three and then four. The fifth movieis a great movie that pays respect to the originals while being its own thing.