Pros:
- music is good, not too much recitative
- visually appealing pretty much the entire time
- the characters, especially the protagonist are decent-to-good
Cons:
- The thematic throughline is really subtle
- Too many characters have too many extremely weird arcs. Isabela’s arc is introduced AFTER it’s resolved. Luisa’s arc is introduced and then resolved essentially arbitrarily. Bruno’s arc is really Abuela’s arc which makes it the thematic arc, but that actually makes it feel both redundant and a cheap red herring.
- The stuff at the beginning with Antonio feels mostly pointless. I guess to further cement Mirabel’s character arc? And have a place for them to be so she’s not believed about the cracks? Still felt extremely superfluous.
- A lot of characters had way too little to do that I wonder about the wisdom of including them at all.
Overall: it’s a fun watch but mostly lacking in substance