Enchanted - Movie Review

Shrek has just messed up the landscape when it comes to kids’ fables; once upon a time they were sweet and innocent affairs, with stories involving dwarves, charming princes, copious amounts of singing, fauna suffering from a severe bout of anthropomorphism, the whole works.  Nowadays it’s all about the modern fairytale stylings, with the stuff that kids these days enjoy; stuff like robots, the Pokemans, cutting-edge computer graphics, and dollops of sarcasm.  Enchanted (from Disney) feels like a return to the old school fairytale movie style; princess sings with animals while preparing to marry the handsome prince, but before you know it the evil step-mother steps in with poisoned apple; it’s a classic formula.

But Disney turned out to be just a little sneaky with their approach to this movie.  Enchanted starts out as a classically animated tale, but through the actions of said wicked step-mother we find the princess, prince, and company suddenly shunted into real life New York City, complete with rude pedestrians and Patrick ‘McDreamy’ Dempsey as the lovelorn dad who just needs someone to come along and reignite his passion for romance.

Naturally there’s a big culture shock, various awkward situations, a cute little girl with a heart of gold (and just enough sass), and an unconventional relationship or two; honestly, the plot itself is fairly formulaic once the initial fun of the unconventional change from animation to real life occurs.  The basic story will appeal to the little ones; the romantic aspect will make the girls happy, the humour and minor action scene will cheer up the lads.  Nothing here sets the world afire, but it will provide a little entertainment to the kids and, more importantly (at least where the big kids are sitting), there is just enough satire of the whole fairytale thing to keep the parents busy as well.

Formulaic main story aside, a minute doesn’t go by in this movie without some form of in-joke being made at the expense of all the old classics; from Cinderella to Bambi, Snow White to…errr, some other famous kids story; there are a tonne of little sight gags or cute lines of dialogue, many of which will register with the older children. There are also some which will only really register with the grownups, and some of them aren’t bad; while it’s doubtful that guffaws will be launched from your body like some form of humour-laden missile, at the very least you’ll crack a smirk every once in a while.

The movie has the typical Disney high quality production values, with beautiful animation, good special effects, and the acting is adequate for what it is.  At the end of the day this is a kids’ movie, and one for the young kids at that, but at least there’s enough here to stop the  adults from being too bored; besides, it’ll score you brownie points if your significant other happens to enjoy these kinds of movie, and at least it’s good for a couple of laughs.

                 

I rate Enchanted: 5.5/10 (It’s hard to rate this sort of movie as a childless adult male; the reviewer part of me says it’s a decent quality kid’s movie with a smattering of humour for the adults; the rest of me says “ewwww Disney movie.” At the end of the day, add another two points if you are into Disney movies or have small children; minus four if the only movies you ever consider watching are rated R)

   

- Tim Sweeney