Friday TV: ‘Descendants 4’ Desecrations

Lewis Carroll might spin in his grave and Walt Disney would completely defrost if they ever caught a glimpse of “Descendants: The Rise of Red” (Disney+, streaming), the teeny-bop adaptation of the muddled story involving the daughters of the princesses Disney has promoted over the years and since exhaustively exploited in any number of projects. 

The title character in this fourth (!) iteration in the “Descendants” franchise is the daughter of the Queen of Hearts, who bears no resemblance whatever to the battleaxe in John Tenniel’s original 1865 illustrations from Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” who was stylized further in Disney’s 1951 cartoon version “Alice in Wonderland.” 

Here she’s played by sleek pop star Rita Ora, but the film’s spotlight is on her daughter Red (Kylie Cantrall), who rebels against mom’s tyrannical ways and accepts an invitation to attend college run by Uma (China Anne McClain), the daughter of Ursula, the many-tentacled underworld menace of “The Little Mermaid.” The Queen of Hearts uses their invitation to stage a coup and Red has to work with the goody two shoes daughter of Cinderella, Chloe Charming (Malia Baker) to do so.

In between, there are some CGI battles, a lot of songs that seem just as contrived through identical-sounding Auto-Tune effects, some clumsy dance numbers and, along the way, a kind of IP parade of other storybook characters Disney has commandeered over the decades — many of them ridiculously adapted to for modern sensibilities (Prince Charming whizzes by on skateboard). 

And there are noted cameos from the adapted Disney Princess world — “teen Aladdin” and “young Jasmine”  and a hoody “young Hook.” It’s as if Disney had taken the jokey all-star storybook parties in “Shrek” — which was parodying the Disney princess cabal — and trying to adopt the same vibe sincerely. 

And yet, perhaps responding to the research on who these films are for, “Rise of Red” is almost exclusively about the female cast. It’s all about girl power in a world where males hardly exist. And there’s no romance either, aside from a brief nostalgic waltz between Brandy and Paolo Montalban, reprising their roles as Cinderella and Prince Charming from the 1997 TV version of Cinderella — eons ago as far as the tween target audience is concerned. 

But one Disney tradition it continues, other than the names of the princesses or their made-up progeny, is the concentration on mother-child relationships — a mainstay of company stories since the days of “Dumbo” and “Bambi.” 

What might have been once fantastical Disney effects are now purse-sized disappointments — a time machine is a pocket-watch; the magic mirror a compact. 

The money now goes to the CGI and fussy castle backgrounds .. and maybe big premieres.

I got to go the world premiere of “Descendents: earlier this week at the Disney lot, in a sound studio where child-sized chairs were lashed together for close seating worse than coach. The stars were in attendance, but hard to distinguish from similarly “themed-dressed” fans in red gowns, and influencers following suit. Lots of parents trailing littler kids, some of whom looked a little glum walking into the glitzy afterparty in a neighboring sound studio, with plenty of tattoo stations and selfie stops, a DJ in action thumping the soundtrack over and over, plus food stations, a VIP area where you can spy the stars, costume displays and dolls in the form of characters. 

The kids deserved better, I thought.