|
|
 |
16 Wishes
R2 - United Kingdom - OMG! Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson and Neil Bray (19th July 2011). |
|
The Film
 I could rip “16 Wishes” to shreds. I could detail every single one of the infinitesimal plot points that it steals from other, better, films. Dissect the predicable script, gushy story and cardboard characters. Write paragraphs about its sterile, lifeless direction and plain unimaginative cinematography. I could, but it won’t. Why? Because while “16 Wishes” is as unoriginal as it is cutesy – and boy it is ever (what, the pink and purple cover art plastered with stars didn’t give it away; thought this was “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” (1991) did you?) – its heart is in the right place, and the message behind the seemingly-vapid madness that lingers on the surface is at least commendable. Abby Jensen (Debby Ryan) is turning sixteen today. For the past eight years she’s been planning for this day; saving her baby-sitting money for a party that people will be talking about for years to come. Abby’s also a bit of a dreamer and has kept a list of wishes – 16 of them to be exact – that she hopes will come true on the day of her “Sweet Sixteen”. Most of these wishes are the sort of superficial nonsense that you’d expect: to meet the pop-star whose face is plastered on the posters that adorn her bedroom walls, to have the hottest most trendy outfit in school, the undivided attention of the most popular boy in her class, a bright red Ford Mustang and the license to drive it. But some of her other wishes aren’t entirely hollow. Abby also wishes to be treated like an adult. Luckily – or, come to find out, unluckily – for Abby, when a bubbly fairy named Celeste (Anna Mae Routledge) sweeps in with a special gift for the high school sophomore, all of her wishes are about to come true. The gift is a box containing 16 wishes-granting candles. The instructions are simple: light a candle, make a wish. One wish per hour; all wishes are final by 12 o’clock midnight. But Abby gets more than she bargained for. When that pesky “I want to be treated like an adult” wish backfires, she soon realizes that most of these frivolous wants won't make her happy and that none of them mean much when they also take away your youthful innocence. Abby suddenly realizes that the small birthday party with her best friend (played by Jean-Luc Bilodeau) and loving family doesn’t seem like it would have been such a terrible idea after all. Only, it's now too late to do anything about it. Or is it? With the exception of some twenty-odd (excruciating) minutes of the first “High School Musical” (2006) – all of which I saw because I was simply in the same room as a bunch of tweenaged relatives – I haven’t seen a Disney Channel movie in… at least a decade, I think (“Phantom of the Megaplex” (2000)?) So, when I read that “16 Wishes” premiered last summer to pretty solid ratings and proved to be one of the highest rated cable events of that week, I didn’t have a whole lot of hope. (What passes for a good Disney Channel programming these days has a reputation for being unusually terrible; or at least much worse than it was 10 years ago). Perhaps it’s because I expected the absolute worst, but the film is surprisingly palatable; probably in large part because of its surprisingly decent all-Canadian cast, who do their best with the material, obviously not taking themselves at all serious. A little bit “Big” (1988) and a lot-a-bit “13 Going on 30” (2004), with a heap of other plot elements seen in various body-swap and kid-is-suddenly-an-adult comedies from the past 25 years, “16 Wishes” isn’t the best film of it’s kind (the lack of Zoltar is, I think, it’s greatest fault. More movies need that creepy-crazy bastard.) It isn’t even one of the better films in it’s particular subgenre. But as a made-for-TV co-production between The Family Channel and The Disney Channel, it isn’t half bad. Well, it certainly isn’t terrible, and it seems like an entertaining enough way to waste 90-minutes for its intended audience (which, admittedly, isn’t me).
Video
Presented anamorphically at 1.78:1, the picture here is of the standard quality of a modern DVD, neither great nor awful. Colours are solid with no noticeable blurring or pixilation. Not much else I can say really.
Audio
Only option is a DD 2.0 Stereo track. Once again, a middle-of-the-road sound to match the picture. Audio is clear without being anything special. Perfectly adequate for a film of this type. No subtitles are available.
Extras
The only extra here is a Trailer for the film running 2:03.
Overall
This Canadian-American co-production does what it sets out to do – to be an entertaining 90-minute diversion that tween girls can watch in their downtime. That doesn’t make “16 Wishes” particularly worthy, and I doubt that most will warm to the film, but then again, I’m not (nor are most reading this, I imagine) the intended audience in the slightest. Rest assured moms and dads, this is a perfectly fine film for your daughters with a good (if not at all original) message.
|
|||||
|