jaydeejay
This review may contain spoilers
"Disenchanted" is a great review title and I'm so mad I didn't come up with it first.
For real though: WOW. This story! How disappointing!
Right from the get go, the audience knows *exactly* what type of story they're getting into: I don't mean they know the genre, I mean the fact that we already know the ending. It's extremely obvious that AkkTheo are endgame. The production could not make this any more clearer with how blunt the trailer was and how blunt the first three episodes were.
The reason why I'm pointing this out because this is one of those stories where we don't care about how it ends because we know they'll get together. So when this happens, the most important thing about your story should be the journey. *How* do we get to the two of them finally hooking up?
And boy howdy did they fall completely flat on their faces with storytelling on this one! Enchante did not need a (TERRIBLY done) plot twist, it didn't even really need mystery. What it needed was to grow these characters and have them slowly fall in love and realize that this whole Enchante mystery isn't actually needed at all. If they went this route, then damn this would've been a great show.
If they explored details that were later dropped and forgotten, then we would've had a better story- hell, we would've loved Theo more. But NO. They chose to butcher the hell out of the main character and expect us to love him and his dumb plight to getting Akk to admit he loves him.
CHARACTERS/PLOT:
Yes, you read that correctly! The character who doesn't want people treating him different, doesn't want people to look at him like he's a spoiled kid does exactly what a spoiled, selfish rich kid would do. See, we all know that Theo and Akk like each other. And come to find out, Theo also knew. From the very beginning. But for SOME reason, he thought that Akk should be the one to get a clue and confess to *him*, not the other way around. So he decides to keep up the charade of not knowing who Enchante is and allow it to blow out of proportion, even though it was him *the whole time*. He allowed Akk to get heartaches and stressed out the entire time and never batted an eyelid. He sat there and let everyone look stupid as hell all because he couldn't be the one to confess first.
The entire time, Akk is the one following Theo around, making sure he's okay, apologizing to him left and right- does Theo do any of this for Akk? *Barely*. There's a scene where Theo, who is Akk's ride to school, drives off in his expensive car and watches in the rear view mirror as Akk runs down the street desperately chasing after his car. This is a great visual that represents their relationship. Speaking of...
One aspect that they never touched on was the fact that Akk is poorer than Theo. Akk lost his job because of Theo (who I don't believe actually does anything about it) and it's very understandably a big deal. They show us that when they played soccer as kids, Akk wore worn out sandals while Theo wore appropriate shoes. Present day Theo states and shows a couple of times that he hates being treated differently because he's rich. Which I thought was interesting about Theo. I saw this as great potential to stir up drama between the two.
Nothing comes of it. But the reason why I'm pointing it out is because in the last tow (VERY pointless) episodes, they have a fight because Akk did something that, in my opinion, was alright for him to do, and threw a hissy fit. And then Theo reveals that this ENTIRE TIME he had plans to move back to France, something he failed to tell Akk, and that he's going to move back in two weeks. The whole time he expect Akk to ONCE AGAIN crawl on his hands and knees expressing how sorry he is. Akk doesn't do it. Theo gets mad, and flies off to France.
And to top it all off? Some time later, Akk shows up in France and says he came for Theo. What. That he's moving here because he wants to be with Theo. *What.* With what fucking money?? Theo legit had this broke kid scramble up money he didn't have just so that he can go follow Theo like a lost dumb puppy.
They do state that Akk somehow in the span of like 2 weeks he managed to get a scholarship, but scholarships don't cover everything.
Unbelievable. Truly.
Now, I have seen people try to explain that Theo is doing all of this because he's lonely. First off, they do a bad job at showing us how the loneliness affects him. It comes off as Theo being on of those people who choose to be alone and don't mind it. Also being lonely can make some people mean, but to this level of manipulation? Crazy. Might be possible, but oh man it's not a good look at all.
Now notice how I haven't mentioned The Four Dudes who acted like they were Enchante? That's because Theo being Enchante ruined that whole part of the story. None of that matters at all whatsoever. But I'll point out a couple of issues I had with these four:
1) Saifa's character was pointless. He does basically nothing the whole time. His role is revealed after we learn about the other 3 and WOW it just made his character and motives uninteresting.
2) Phupha's mom. We find out that Phupha lied because he very desperately needed money to get away from his very abusive mother. I will say, I thought his subplot was great and added some intrigue to everything. Once his jig is up, he tries to reveal that Natee is also a fraud and that was cool too seeing them butt heads. But guess what? In the end, Phupha stays with his terrible mom. Yes. Yep. Mmhmm. You read that right. I was mad when they revealed the end to his subplot and I'm still mad about it.
3) Wayo. Theo is the most gross character on the show, but Wayo is #2. The difference is however that Wayo has an addiction, so that's hard to control. Theo's just sucks. But anyway, Wayo needed money from Theo because he stole a bunch of money from the soccer club. He even went as far as trying to get Theo alone and wasted so that he can steal money. It comes to light to the soccer club, and does he suffer any consequences? NO. Do they handle the whole drunk thing appropriately? NO.
We also have the very poorly used red herring character: Sun. This character should not have existed. They tried to throw us off and make us think that Theo would end up with him, but once again, we already know that he's going to end up with Akk.
The story starts off pretty well! But then episode 8 comes along and gives you a good smack in the face. I'm still suffering from the whiplash.
PRODUCTION:
Now going back to the whole "VERY pointless last two episodes": this show did not need 10 episodes. If you want to watch the show, do yourself a favor and actually don't watch it. But if you *really* want to, do yourself a favor and stop at episode 8. They get together in the end of that, and it should've stopped there.
Another glaring problem with this show is the pacing. Now, I'll give them a bit of slack because they don't control how many episodes they get. However, they couldn't have figured out another way to end the show?? They did what Don't Say No did where the story ended early, but they needed to fill in the rest of the time. So they added very useless drama for last 2-3 episodes that made no sense and gave me a headache.
And just like with DSN, the drama at the end was very random and made no sense. Drama for the sake of drama. Awful.
In terms of set, I liked a lot of the locations they used: that university is pretty! As well as the library and even some of the shots that were shot "in France". Nicely done for what they had to work with.
CAST/ACTING:
Everyone did well, but especially Force who played Akk. A lot of people say that Force carried the show, and to an extent, I do agree.
The acting for The Four Dudes actually wasn't bad; the best one was Phupha's actor. I feel like they all executed their characters well: Natee's actor did a great job at making Natee look and feel creepy as hell. Same with Wayo's actor. Even Saifa who, honestly, didn't have much personality to begin with. He was hot as hell though.
As for Book/Theo...I have mixed feelings. In hindsight, the odd at times stiff acting actually works out very well for Theo. Initially, prior to realizing how awful Theo really is, his acting felt off. I don't think it's the actor's fault, however. I think most of it is due to the directing. However, knowing what I know now about Theo? It all makes sense. It just sucks that you have to wait all the way to episode 8 to fully appreciate it.
I would love to see Akk's sisters' actresses in another show! Egg's actress was SO cute and she killed it.
CONCLUSIONS:
Don't watch this is you want a cute story about a healthy relationship. If anything, watch it to learn how not to write a story.
Right from the get go, the audience knows *exactly* what type of story they're getting into: I don't mean they know the genre, I mean the fact that we already know the ending. It's extremely obvious that AkkTheo are endgame. The production could not make this any more clearer with how blunt the trailer was and how blunt the first three episodes were.
The reason why I'm pointing this out because this is one of those stories where we don't care about how it ends because we know they'll get together. So when this happens, the most important thing about your story should be the journey. *How* do we get to the two of them finally hooking up?
And boy howdy did they fall completely flat on their faces with storytelling on this one! Enchante did not need a (TERRIBLY done) plot twist, it didn't even really need mystery. What it needed was to grow these characters and have them slowly fall in love and realize that this whole Enchante mystery isn't actually needed at all. If they went this route, then damn this would've been a great show.
If they explored details that were later dropped and forgotten, then we would've had a better story- hell, we would've loved Theo more. But NO. They chose to butcher the hell out of the main character and expect us to love him and his dumb plight to getting Akk to admit he loves him.
CHARACTERS/PLOT:
Yes, you read that correctly! The character who doesn't want people treating him different, doesn't want people to look at him like he's a spoiled kid does exactly what a spoiled, selfish rich kid would do. See, we all know that Theo and Akk like each other. And come to find out, Theo also knew. From the very beginning. But for SOME reason, he thought that Akk should be the one to get a clue and confess to *him*, not the other way around. So he decides to keep up the charade of not knowing who Enchante is and allow it to blow out of proportion, even though it was him *the whole time*. He allowed Akk to get heartaches and stressed out the entire time and never batted an eyelid. He sat there and let everyone look stupid as hell all because he couldn't be the one to confess first.
The entire time, Akk is the one following Theo around, making sure he's okay, apologizing to him left and right- does Theo do any of this for Akk? *Barely*. There's a scene where Theo, who is Akk's ride to school, drives off in his expensive car and watches in the rear view mirror as Akk runs down the street desperately chasing after his car. This is a great visual that represents their relationship. Speaking of...
One aspect that they never touched on was the fact that Akk is poorer than Theo. Akk lost his job because of Theo (who I don't believe actually does anything about it) and it's very understandably a big deal. They show us that when they played soccer as kids, Akk wore worn out sandals while Theo wore appropriate shoes. Present day Theo states and shows a couple of times that he hates being treated differently because he's rich. Which I thought was interesting about Theo. I saw this as great potential to stir up drama between the two.
Nothing comes of it. But the reason why I'm pointing it out is because in the last tow (VERY pointless) episodes, they have a fight because Akk did something that, in my opinion, was alright for him to do, and threw a hissy fit. And then Theo reveals that this ENTIRE TIME he had plans to move back to France, something he failed to tell Akk, and that he's going to move back in two weeks. The whole time he expect Akk to ONCE AGAIN crawl on his hands and knees expressing how sorry he is. Akk doesn't do it. Theo gets mad, and flies off to France.
And to top it all off? Some time later, Akk shows up in France and says he came for Theo. What. That he's moving here because he wants to be with Theo. *What.* With what fucking money?? Theo legit had this broke kid scramble up money he didn't have just so that he can go follow Theo like a lost dumb puppy.
They do state that Akk somehow in the span of like 2 weeks he managed to get a scholarship, but scholarships don't cover everything.
Unbelievable. Truly.
Now, I have seen people try to explain that Theo is doing all of this because he's lonely. First off, they do a bad job at showing us how the loneliness affects him. It comes off as Theo being on of those people who choose to be alone and don't mind it. Also being lonely can make some people mean, but to this level of manipulation? Crazy. Might be possible, but oh man it's not a good look at all.
Now notice how I haven't mentioned The Four Dudes who acted like they were Enchante? That's because Theo being Enchante ruined that whole part of the story. None of that matters at all whatsoever. But I'll point out a couple of issues I had with these four:
1) Saifa's character was pointless. He does basically nothing the whole time. His role is revealed after we learn about the other 3 and WOW it just made his character and motives uninteresting.
2) Phupha's mom. We find out that Phupha lied because he very desperately needed money to get away from his very abusive mother. I will say, I thought his subplot was great and added some intrigue to everything. Once his jig is up, he tries to reveal that Natee is also a fraud and that was cool too seeing them butt heads. But guess what? In the end, Phupha stays with his terrible mom. Yes. Yep. Mmhmm. You read that right. I was mad when they revealed the end to his subplot and I'm still mad about it.
3) Wayo. Theo is the most gross character on the show, but Wayo is #2. The difference is however that Wayo has an addiction, so that's hard to control. Theo's just sucks. But anyway, Wayo needed money from Theo because he stole a bunch of money from the soccer club. He even went as far as trying to get Theo alone and wasted so that he can steal money. It comes to light to the soccer club, and does he suffer any consequences? NO. Do they handle the whole drunk thing appropriately? NO.
We also have the very poorly used red herring character: Sun. This character should not have existed. They tried to throw us off and make us think that Theo would end up with him, but once again, we already know that he's going to end up with Akk.
The story starts off pretty well! But then episode 8 comes along and gives you a good smack in the face. I'm still suffering from the whiplash.
PRODUCTION:
Now going back to the whole "VERY pointless last two episodes": this show did not need 10 episodes. If you want to watch the show, do yourself a favor and actually don't watch it. But if you *really* want to, do yourself a favor and stop at episode 8. They get together in the end of that, and it should've stopped there.
Another glaring problem with this show is the pacing. Now, I'll give them a bit of slack because they don't control how many episodes they get. However, they couldn't have figured out another way to end the show?? They did what Don't Say No did where the story ended early, but they needed to fill in the rest of the time. So they added very useless drama for last 2-3 episodes that made no sense and gave me a headache.
And just like with DSN, the drama at the end was very random and made no sense. Drama for the sake of drama. Awful.
In terms of set, I liked a lot of the locations they used: that university is pretty! As well as the library and even some of the shots that were shot "in France". Nicely done for what they had to work with.
CAST/ACTING:
Everyone did well, but especially Force who played Akk. A lot of people say that Force carried the show, and to an extent, I do agree.
The acting for The Four Dudes actually wasn't bad; the best one was Phupha's actor. I feel like they all executed their characters well: Natee's actor did a great job at making Natee look and feel creepy as hell. Same with Wayo's actor. Even Saifa who, honestly, didn't have much personality to begin with. He was hot as hell though.
As for Book/Theo...I have mixed feelings. In hindsight, the odd at times stiff acting actually works out very well for Theo. Initially, prior to realizing how awful Theo really is, his acting felt off. I don't think it's the actor's fault, however. I think most of it is due to the directing. However, knowing what I know now about Theo? It all makes sense. It just sucks that you have to wait all the way to episode 8 to fully appreciate it.
I would love to see Akk's sisters' actresses in another show! Egg's actress was SO cute and she killed it.
CONCLUSIONS:
Don't watch this is you want a cute story about a healthy relationship. If anything, watch it to learn how not to write a story.
Was this review helpful to you?
