Fondly pokes fun of All Things Princess while being All Things Princess.
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Disney is to princesses what McDonald's is to burgers. In fact, as the fast-food giant was selling happy meals, the House of Mouse built a franchise of its own by peddling happily ever afters. You can't walk into a store these days without seeing entire aisles of princess dresses, crowns, games, dolls, action figures, and accessories--all tied to Disney films. So it's more than a little surprising for Disney to come out with a film like "Enchanted," which actually pokes fun of their franchise while also paying tribute. It's rare that a film can have it both ways, but writer Bill Kelly ("Blast from the Past") and director Kevin Lima ("Tarzan") really pull it off.
"Enchanted" is so jam-packed with allusions to previous Disney princesses and their films that it's hard to keep up. You'll recognize quite a few homages to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Little Mermaid," and "Aladdin." A Blu-ray exclusive trivia game that lets you watch the film while guessing the inspirations behind the allusions doesn't even come close to covering them all, because anything remotely romantic gets thrown into this burgoo. Even non-princess films like "Lady and the Tramp" are referenced. For Disney fans, that's half the fun, but you don't have to know all of the films to enjoy a breezy revisionist fairy tale like this.
It all starts with a strong concept. What a great idea it is to have a cartoon princess pushed into a well by a witch who sends her to a place where the hag thinks there are no happily ever afters: New York City. And so with her Prince and one of her forest friends trailing, Giselle (Amy Adams) finds herself being forced to take a bite out of the Big Apple. The first fully animated portion of the film is shot in a letterboxed 1.85:1 to give the appearance of the old 1.33:1 classics, while the minute Giselle comes up through a manhole cover in the middle of Times Square and everything turns to live-action, the ratio switches to 2.35:1.
Adams, who was equally unflappable and cheery in "Junebug," lays it on appropriately thick in this romantic comedy, which takes quite a few liberties with fairy tale conventions. Like, the whole idea of finding Prince Charming is redefined, and in this film it's the Disney princess who grabs a sword and comes to the rescue of her prince. It also takes a dose of New York realism for Giselle to know whether the prince is right for her. James Marsden is unabashedly cornier than the Corny Collins character he played in "Hairspray," with his Prince Edward tickling your funny bone almost every time he prances here and there, spouting fairy-tale clichés with what would seem like dinner-theater abandon in any other film. Then there's Susan Sarandon, who's so self-effacing that she becomes a virtual look-alike for the queen in "Snow White"--so restrained, by contrast, that it makes her character even more believably evil. The wild cards in this mix are Patrick Dempsey, who plays divorce lawyer Robert Philip (as in Prince?) and his precocious little girl, Morgan (Rachel Covey), along with Robert's significant other, Nancy Tremaine (Idina Menzel), who not-so-coincidentally bears the last name of the stepmother and sisters in "Cinderella." Needless to say, Morgan isn't happy with her father's decision to propose to Nancy.
Everything changes, though, when Robert decides to help this poor deluded woman he finds wandering around the bowery among hookers and winos, dressed as if she's going to an 18th century ball--complete with diamond tiara (which a homeless old man quickly steals). As the Prince and a high-energy chipmunk named Pip (voiced by Jeff Bennett in the cartoon kingdom of Andalasia, and director Lima in New York City) try to find Giselle and rescue her, the queen has sent her own minion to finish her off with (what else?) a poison apple, among other things. And Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) comes across as a more benign version of all the bumbling henchman who've ever driven their evil masters nuts. With two "princes" and two princess wannabes, of course there are romantic comedy misunderstandings and mishaps, while the bulk of the film deals with that cheery cartoon princess's take on a cynical place like New York City. She doesn't get sarcasm, she has a habit of singing, and she summons animal friends to help her with the housework, same as Snow White and Briar Rose did with the forest animals, and Cinderella and others did with the household pets. Here, though it's household PESTS that become part of Giselle's hilarious cleaning song: city rats, cockroaches, and pigeons. That brilliant scene and song ("Happy Working Song") is typical of the cheerful naiveté that comes into contact with more cynicism than a cartoon princess has ever had to deal with.
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[release]22984[/release]