Enchanted (2007)

This Movie Is About: a girl Giselle (Amy Adams) in her fairy tale land Andalasia, who has always wanted to meet her prince and live happily ever after. One day, when she's alone in her tree house singing with the animals and dreaming of her prince. Prince Edward (James Marsden comes by just in time to save Giselle from an evil troll. The two fall in love and promptly decide to get married. Thus is the norm in this animated fairy tale land. But you see there's a catch. Prince Edward has a evil step mother, Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who has been sitting in as queen and if Prince Edward ever gets married, his bribe will become the new queen. Well no evil witch is going to step down as queen to some peasant girl. So what does she do? She disguises herself as an old hag and lures Giselle to a well before her wedding and pushes her through it. Giselle lands on the other side in a disturbing new world, ours. She meets Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey) the only person in New York that will help her. Now, she must wait around until Prince Edward comes and rescues her while adjusting to this new life.

You Should Watch This Movie Because: this is the first real solid fairy tale Disney has put out in a while. We all grew up with some real classic films and kids these days have to re-watch those films in order to get the full experience. So it's about time for Disney to step up and recapture some of that magic they had in the good ol' days. Although this film isn't a classic by comparison, it does do a lot of things right and some extraordinary things that they couldn't do in the past because of technology. Premise is funny enough with animated characters falling into our world and seeing their perspective on the real and how the perception of love of the two worlds are so different and how both aren't right by itself and no matter the philosophy, true love wins over anything.

What's Hot: This is the closest thing to a classic Disney movie I've seen in a long time. It has all the classic elements. The run away hero, the companions and the animals which are cute but play a vital role along the way. The reluctant guy who will end up with the princess but isn't sure. Then you have the music. Sure the songs aren't written by Elton John or anything but they aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination. There are some great songs in here accompanied by grand dance routines which are even more satisfying because they are done with live actors. Something I bet the kids were all dying to see. The love story is nice and clever and they could have totally cheaped out done something safe but instead they pushed what they were going for and it came off in the end.

What's Not Hot: I'm afraid that this film just isn't that appealing to the more mature audiences. I'm not saying grown ups won't like this movie because some will definitely enjoy watching this film just as much as their children but people who are not able to go see a live actors acting like cartoon characters or believe in fantasy worlds or things just happening that you don't see every day shouldn't do see a movie. Some people just have a hard time imagining this situation and will claim that this movie isn't worth watching because it's not realistic. Well, heck, it's a fairy tale straight up. it doesn't matter if it's animated or live action or in this case, both. Some people wont' be able to accept that style and tone and some people will not be able to accept the nice bow tie ending. It's very standard Disney and if you can't take that, then this movie is not for you.

Last Comments: Enchanted really tries to bring back the old school feel of fairy tales back in the golden days of Disney and although this little spin on the standard genre doesn't quite please the general audience like Shrek it does have a nice feeling to it. It's a pleasure to watch and it's an uplifting film which we could all use in the winter with all the gloomy weather. The music and dance is incorporated quite nicely in this film and the character arcs are fantastic although predictable. It's not a masterpiece by any means but it is a movie that does what's required right. It dazzles with some special effects that most fairy tales lack and really brings the fairy tale world and our world together quite beautifully. The story isn't very deep and although the theme of true love is prevalent and nice, it's purely for children and something more mature audiences may have a problem connecting with.

Breaking It Down:
Story: 8.2 (Billy Kelly)
Direction: 7.0 (Kevin Lima)
Acting: 7.5
Cinematography: 9.0
Music/Sound: 8.0

Entertainment Value: 7.8 (not an average)