Released during Walt Disney Pictures' centennial year, the animated musical
Wish
offers references -- visual, musical, and otherwise -- to several Disney classics of the past, but especially to the Oscar-winning song and Disney logo theme "When You Wish Upon Star," which helped inspire the plot. The movie concerns 17-year-old Asha (voiced by
Ariana DeBose
), whose wish on behalf of her kingdom results in a magic fallen star helping her go up against their egomaniacal king, Magnifico (
Chris Pine
). At the time of its release, movie goers already knew about
DeBose
's singing chops from her Academy Award-winning turn as Anita in
Steven Spielberg
's
West Side Story
(2021);
Pine
's Broadway-ready skills were revealed in the 2014 film adaptation of
Into the Woods
. Here, the leads set aside
Bernstein
and
Sondheim
to make way for seven original songs by the newly formed songwriting team of
Julia Michaels
Benjamin Rice
. While
Rice
won a Grammy for producing the soundtrack to
A Star Is Born
(2018), and
Michaels
had written songs for the likes of
Justin Bieber
Selena Gomez
, they are both singers and songwriters in their own right, and
delivers the end-credits song "A Wish Worth Making." Before that, though, along with three other originals,
sets the scene with the Latin-flavored "Welcome to Rosas,"
proves a suitable foil with the playful (and ominous) villain song "This Is the Thanks I Get ?!," and the empowering
ballad "This Wish" is key for launching the film's supernatural story. Happily, the ensuing revolution ("Knowing What I Know Now") makes good on Asha's wish. ~ Marcy Donelson