Wizards Of Waverly Place: The Movie

Want to silence the kids for 90 minutes of Disney-friendly family "fun" (or want to gaze upon a Mexican Miley Cyrus), then Wizards Of Waverly Place is for you. An unprecedented success since its debut in 2007 with the pre-tweens, Wizards Of Waverley Place is a saccharine tale of the Russo family, an all American collective with magical powers bizarrely similar to Harry Potter and friends.

The Russos are ex-wizarding Italian-American father Jerry, his Mexican-American wife Theresa and their children Alex, Max and Justin. Alex (Selena Gomez) is very much the focus of the show with her friend Harper aping the relationship of Blossom and Six in the lamentable (though ground-breaking) Blossom series of the 90's. Wizarding aside, the scrapes and antics the family get up to are similar to an extended episode of Saved By The Bell.

This movie-length marathon is dragged out to an interminable length as the kids go off on a family holiday to San Juan, Puerto Rico, the place where their parents met. After a run in with an amateur magician who used to be a wizard, the young wand-wavers are informed that the island is the home of the Stone of Dreams (La Piedra de los Sueños, for those parents who in a Dora The Explorer type way think these movies are in some way educational).

In reality the film is just another marketing exercise for the Mou$e and, with a soundtrack of execrable Selena Gomez covers that pads out the running time, as a Disney Channel Original Movie this is a cut above some of the others out there vying for the pre-pubescent pounds., but for anyone outside the target market, beware.



Released on DVD on 22nd February 2010 by Disney Home Entertainment.

Written by Simon Cole.