By: Ava Rogha
The Descendants franchise (2015 – 2019) by Kenny Ortega blew me away with its original plot and incredible musical acts. But what I will be focusing on in this review is why the franchise makes it to my top list, and compare all three movies!
It all starts with the first movie, where we meet the children of our favorite villains Cruella De Vil (Wendy Raquel Robinson), Jafar (Maz Jobrani) Evil Queen (Kathy Najimy) and Maleficent (Kristin Chenoweth).
They live on an isolated island called “The Isle of the Lost”, which is separated from Auradon — where our beloved Disney princesses live with their children and spouses.
"I've got some mischief in my blood."
The story focuses mainly on Maleficent’s daughter Mal (Dove Cameron), who is the most wicked villain out there and aims to follow her mother’s rulebook of taking over Auradon with her friends Evie (Sofia Carson), Jay (Booboo Stewart) and Carlos (Cameron Boyce), who are the children of the other main villains.
When Prince Ben of Auroradon (Mitchell Hope) — the son of Belle (Keegan Connor Tracy) and King Beast (Dan Payne), decides to invite four kids from the isle to come and join them at Auroradon Prep, Mal and her mother come up with a genius plan to steal Fairy Godmother’s powerful wand so they can take over Auroradon.
Mal's initial plan is to make the prince fall in love with her so she can be his date for the Cotillion, which would lead her to the wand. However, her plan of taking over Auradon slowly changes after meeting and actually falling in love with Ben.
"I don't know what love feels like."
It's interesting to see how the most wicked villains start off as four evil kids, but end up choosing “good” after spending some time at Auradon, alongside the royal kids including Cinderella’s son, Chad (Jedidiah Goodacre), Aurora’s daughter, Audrey (Sarah Jeffery), and most importantly Belle’s son, Ben, who changes Mal for the better.
The second movie presents a conflicted Mal, who feels like she doesn’t fit in with Ben’s friends and family.
She is yet again left making difficult decisions including choosing between staying on Auradon with Ben or going back to The Isle and to her old life.
But Mal is not the only one having to make a difficult decision! Ben is super in love with his girlfriend and cannot let her return to The Isle without him. You will see a whole new version of Ben in the second movie, where he is trained by Evie, Jay and Carlos to act villainous and evil.
"I can look into your eyes and I can tell you're not evil."
In addition to everything that is going on between Mal and Ben, you will be introduced to new villains including Ursula’s daughter Uma (China Anne McClain) and Gaston’s son Gil (Dylan Playfair), who have important recurring roles in the final two movies. These villains are revengeful and mad that only four kids were chosen to join the prestigious Auradon Prep and instead of directly targeting the four villains, they target poor Ben, which is enough to create a duel between them.
The final movie is probably my least favorite one, but it has got the best musical acts including “Queen of Mean” performed by Sarah Jeffery, “Break This Down” by the whole cast and “One Kiss” by Sofia Carson!
The plot is very different from the first two.
In the final movie, Audrey, the daughter of Aurora turns into a villain!
It follows Mal and her friends fighting a battle yet again, but this time, with the help of Uma. As they all come together to fight Audrey, secrets will be unveiled and you will be introduced to new villains once again! However, what really has you watching the movie until the end is to see whether or not the barriers between The Isle and Auradon will finally be broken.
"Most people get dumped because they aren’t good enough. I got dumped because I’m not bad enough."
As you can tell, each movie is innovative and full of cliff-hangers.
I must admit that my personal favorite is easily the first one, but that’s mainly because of the romance that is formed between Ben and Mal when they least expected it. And Ben’s way of expressing his love for his girlfriend is beautifully presented! It’s also far less supernatural than the following movies and more on the fairy tale side.
It reminds me of a merged live-action version of all the Disney fairy tales.
The other two movies, on the other hand, don’t give off the same vibe.
And even though I highly enjoyed watching all three, I must say that the first one really impressed me.
To save the best for last, you will be introduced to more couples as we go along, including Carlos and Jane (Brenna D'Amico), the daughter of Fairy Godmother, and Evie and Doug (Zachary Gibson), the son of Dopey. So if you’re curious to see for yourself, check out all three movies now streaming on Disney+!
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