Enchanted – Movie Review

The just released Enchanted (a couple of months late in India!) is a childrens movie, a delightful musical, and one that you can enjoy with children. This Disney movie has got 2-D animation and it’s got real-life, so you get both. You can read on as there are no spoilers.

The movie starts off in Andalasia, a land of cartoon characters. It’s a once upon a time story…once upon a time there lived a princess called Giselle (her voice is that of Amy Adams) who is looking for love and once upon a time there was a prince called Edward (voice is that of James Marsden) who is also looking for love…and well, they meet and fall in love. But there is an evil stepmother (played by the talented Susan Sarandon) who wants to separate them. Sort of brings to mind the umpteen fairy tales that we have read in our childhood doesn’t it, but then this is just the beginning, and what follows is not very typical of fairy tales!

The prince and the princess land up (now played by the flesh and blood actors) in the real world – New York of all places. More characters are introduced here. There is the New York lawyer Robert (played by Patrick Dempsey) who has a daughter, Morgan, (Rachel Covey). Little Morgan and Robert bump into the fairy tale characters and Morgan takes an instant liking to Giselle. It is through Morgan’s eyes that we see her and Giselle’s naivete doesn’t seem so outlandish after all. I need to stop telling the story here as it will give away the plot. What happens next is a bit unexpected, but no great surprise. You can guess where the movie is heading half way through.

There are plenty of animals in the movie, and one of them, a chipmunk, jumps the great divide, from animated land to the real world and becomes a real chipmunk. He is Giselle’s friend and ally. Giselle has the ability to attract animals in the real world too and we see her surrounded by a variety of city creatures like pigeons and even rats and cockroaches! That was a bit much…I’m not fond of watching cockroaches dancing and singing along with the heroine and found it difficult to watch this sequence.

The acting was okay. Amy Adams has this constant wide-eyed innocent look stamped on her face and this was probably what she was supposed to act like, but I found it a little irritating. I preferred Dempsey’s low key acting, although it was a bit flat. As for James Marsden, he was grinning and jumping around waving his sword most of the time…as comic in real life as in the cartoon world. Susan Sarandon as the evil step-mother was stunning.

Enchanted is not just a story…it pointedly tells us that fairy tales aren’t exactly dishing out the right ideas to our kids. That the happily-ever-after formula has its flaws.

The movie is well directed (by Kevin Lima), brilliantly edited, entertaining and great fun! It is also well made and a compact 1 hour 47 minutes. The music is good…I thoroughly enjoyed the song sequences. A really decent childrens movie…and yes, it’s got a happily-ever-after ending.

Social Bookmarks: