Walt Disney famously said for us to “remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.” But as omnipresent as mouse ears are in Disney’s identity, it is the sentimental “When you wish upon a star” that is the company’s aural identity, played under the ever-evolving logo that introduces every Disney animated film.

So it was only natural that Walt Disney Animation should try to do something with that “dream” of stars to wish upon and concoct a filmed fairy tale out of it.

But “Wish” is a fantasy musical of unfulfilled wishes, starting with “I wish this children’s animated film had been better.”

The market-researched/demographics-obsessed script is nothing that would have made the cut when the Brothers Grimm were publishing their fairytales. The animation has a polished blandness — every CGI film from every animation studio is starting to look the same. And while the Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice tunes are pleasant enough, giving stars Ariana DeBose and even Chris Pine moments to shine, there is be nothing here that will replace your children chirping along to “Let It Go” in the ride to preschool.

The Mediterranean island Kingdom of Rosas was founded by the benevolent, wish-loving/wish-granting wizard Magnifico, a ruler who keeps the peace and keeps his people happy with the prospect of having their fondest wish fulfilled.

It could be a life-defining wish, “the one that makes you who you are.”

But “most” do not get their wish, Magnifico (Chris Pine) reminds his subjects, and Asha (Ariana DeBose), who has an interview with the King for a job as his apprentice. Little flashes of the guy’s personality — a hint of vanity, a touch of megalomania, a temper — turn this loyal “cares too much” teen who wants to work for him/learn from him into something of a rebel.

Asha sees the unfulfilled wishes, hoarded in floating in bubbles in the dome of the observatory in Magnifico’s castle, and wonders why everyone shouldn’t get their wish, which are doled out once a year.

Magnifico’s touchy “I decide what everyone deserves!” confirms her fears about him.

And she sees the trap in this king’s contract with his people. Everybody gives Magnifico their wish on their eighteenth birthday, and then — by decree and by his magic — they forget it. Forever. Unless he later grants it and lets their wish come true, provided that it’s a wish that would be “good for Rosas.”

Why shouldn’t we remember our dreams and cling to them? Why would the preening monarch care if we remember, if the whole “wish coming true” bond between them is on the up-and-up?

And then a wishing star comes down from the heavens, giving Asha power to ask questions and organize her friends to resist, and granting the wish of speech to her ever-bleating baby goat, Valentino.

Oddly, when he speaks the goat sounds like Alan Tudyk impersonating Sir Ian McKellen.

Early Spanish touches in the music make one hope the score and the story will settle into something we can connect with a culture and its traditions. But that’s just part of the film’s all-inclusive “let every viewer see someone who ‘represents’ her or him” engineering.

The kingdom is unobtrusively, naturally diverse — until you notice the “types” parked in the beauty-in-braids Asha’s posse — a female Asian cook with a limp, a very short guy, the tall and skinny chap, a Black woman, etc.

“Frozen” writer Jennifer Lee and episodic TV drama/thrillers screenwriter (!?) Allison Moore are credited with this script. But a cursory understanding of the animation process and Disney’s corporate culture does more in explaining how “Wish,” an almost laugh-free and generally joyless project, made its way through Disney’s process, signed-off on by marketing folk with market research in their hearts, and no flair at all for “Once upon a time” tales.

Moments of “Wish” come off — DeBose’s big ballads, Pine’s delicious take on an “I’m bad” (semi) show-stopper.

But the story is off, the heart is missing and the laughs aren’t there. Even if you excuse “Wish” with the usual “It’s a Disney cartoon for VERY young children (Zygotes?)” this picture stands out among the Mouse House’s 62 animated features as one of the most pointless of them all.

And hearing that evocative, emotional “Wish Upon a Star” playing under the flashier-than-ever “Disney-100 (years)” logo that opens the picture just rubs Jiminy Cricket in the wound.

Jiminy and signed-off on

Rating: PG for thematic elements and mild action.

Cast: The voices of Arianna DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Victor Garber, Jennifer Kumiyama, Niko Vargas and Angelique Cabral

Credits: Directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, scripted by Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore. A Walt Disney release.

Running time: 1:32