If the embed above has been turned into a toad, the trailer is also here on YouTube.
Walt Disney Animation Studios held the world premiere of Hexed at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on Thursday 12 November, and the first reactions from the purple carpet crowd are in. They are mostly warm, occasionally gushing, and almost unanimous on one point: the film is stolen by a cat with three eyes and Walton Goggins’s voice.
Hexed is the studio’s 65th animated feature and its first that isn’t a sequel since Wish in 2023, a film Disney would probably prefer we all stopped bringing up. Hailee Steinfeld voices Billie Doe, an impulsive teenager who discovers she has magical powers and is promptly flung out of suburbia into Hexe, a hidden realm of witches. Rashida Jones is her cautious mother Alice, who is dragged along and turns out to have some family history she hasn’t mentioned. Jodie Foster plays Queen Celeste, ruler of Hexe and the film’s villain. Goggins is Beef Roger Crummchuk, a grumpy magical cat with one eye more than the usual allocation, and there are parts for Henry Winkler, Dan Stevens, Tracey Ullman as an enchanted quill and Stephen Fry as a talking journal, which is the role his voice has been auditioning for since about 1987. Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand direct, with Josie Trinidad co-directing, from a script by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller.
The praise has gathered around the mother-and-daughter story and the performances. Variety‘s Jazz Tangcay declared herself under its spell and singled out Foster’s villain with evident relish. The Nerds of Color called it the season’s most magical surprise, while also grumbling about needle drops and a convenient ending. Several attendees reached for the word “unexpected”, which is not one that has been attached to a Disney release for a while. Foster herself told reporters she enjoyed playing a snob, a liar and a hypocrite, and co-director Hand said she brought “so much incredible evilness” to the booth. Two Oscars and she has finally been allowed to cackle.
It wasn’t a clean sweep. MovieZine’s Alexander Kardelo found the film busy with pop songs and short on feeling, and reported that as an adult he was bored and it felt long. He may yet turn out to be the canary. Premiere reactions come from invited guests who have just been given a free drink and a look at Hailee Steinfeld, and they run warmer than the reviews that follow, so the sensible course is to wait for the critics proper before rearranging the half-term diary.
Still, there is something cheering in the shape of it. Here at SFcrowsnest, we have spent several years watching Disney animation feed on its own back catalogue, so an original fantasy with a portal, a wicked queen and a sardonic animal sidekick feels almost radical, even though it describes roughly a third of the studio’s output between 1937 and 1999. The trade papers are tracking a five-day American opening of around $40 to $50 million over Thanksgiving, respectable for something with no number after its title.
Hexed opens in the US on Wednesday 25 November and reaches British cinemas on Friday 27 November. If the cat is as good as they say, expect to be buying a plush one by Christmas.
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