Enchanted Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)November 21st, 2007
ENCHANTED
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
ENCHANTED is easily the best Disney movie in years, but you'd never know it from its intentionally awful beginning. It could even be the best film of the year. This wonderfully irreverent comedy starts off with an old fashion 2D animated version of a story that is instantly recognizable as a modified version of the Cinderella story. Cheesy, sped up and overedited, as if it were a cross between a cartoon and a music video, the first five minutes or so will have you ready to scream and bolt for the exits.
But this is just exactly the reaction the film wants, since after a few minutes, these animated images escape their surroundings and go to the real-world -- if you can call Times Square the "real-world" -- and the movie switches to live-action. You'll breathe an instant sigh of relief, and you'll be trying to catch your breath, since the laughs -- big ones thanks to some great jokes -- will soon be flying your way.
In a wonderfully good-spirited film, Amy Adams, Oscar nominee for her breakout role in JUNEBUG, plays Giselle, a soon--to-be-princess who can't think bad of anyone. Incurably happy, she lives in a cartoonish dream world where she is a Cinderella-type character. An incident early in the narrative forces her from the animated artist's canvas to the body of Adams, when Giselle lands in the aforementioned Big Apple.
Wearing a big fluffy, formal gown and a boatload of jewels, she gets soaked in a Manhattan downpour. A lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey, McDreamy from "Grey's Anatomy") and his six-year-old daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey) rescue Giselle from a billboard that she thinks must be her castle in the sky. Robert is so anti-fairytale that he refuses buy children's books for his only child.
This fish-out-of-water story finds lots of funny things for Giselle to do, with some of the best being the herd of creatures she rounds up to help her with the cleaning of Robert's apartment where she comes to stay for a while. Since there are no sweet little forest creatures around, she summons the local fauna to lend a hand. Singing while she works, she has cockroaches, rats and pigeons to help her with the chores.
Other animated characters escape to join Giselle on earth. Prince Edward (James Marsden) and his trusty companion, a chipmunk, come to rescue Giselle. And the nefarious Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) sends the bumbling Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) to kill Giselle with poisoned apples.
As silly as it gets, which is sometimes very silly indeed, the movie always believes in itself and its characters. As ridiculous as it all becomes, you'll find yourself touched and wrapped up in the wacky goings-on.
The movie is also notable for what it doesn't do. There are very few reaction shots of everyday New Yorkers to these fairytale characters. We get enough of these sorts of shots to set the mood, but we spend most of the time with the lead characters themselves rather than wasting much time on others laughing at them. The story is enough smart too to leave Sarandon's introduction into the real world until the end. A little of her was just the right amount. Too much of her character's evilness could have tilted the story into a much darker arena.
Finally, in a film in which there is so much to praise, let me finish with a mention of several of the big song and dance numbers. The best of these is a very colorful production number set in Central Park. It, like the rest of the movie, is a sheer delight.
ENCHANTED runs 1:54. It is rated PG for "some scary images and mild innuendo" and would be acceptable for all ages, but be aware that Sarandon's brief portrayal of a pock-marked old woman can frighten the little ones as it did in our audience..
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Wednesday, November 21, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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