fab cast, fab film, utterly fabulous from start to finish ! ! ! !
Disadvantages:
none whatsoever ! ! !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
First of all, before I say anything else, I want to re-iterate something I said a long time ago, when I was doing Eve6kicksass' Celebrity Birthday challenged and realised Susan Sarandon was one of the stars who shared a birthday with me - I just don't like that woman.
After watching a film where she played an evil queen several years later, i don't feel any differently. I REALLY don't like her...
A week ago, I hadn't even heard of "Enchanted". I'm sure there must have been a bit of hype about it, but I was completely unaware until a girl in my work mentioned she was going to see it at the weekend. I just assumed it was something along the lines of "Stardust" and wasn't particularly interested . . . until I was watching channel 4 on Saturday and a T4 movie special about the film came on. I watched as they explained the premise of the movie and suddenly I was . . . well, ENCHANTED by the whole idea of it. Luckily when I mentioned to my friend Vicki that I wanted to see it, she was up for it so we arranged to go last night.
I had three days of waiting excitedly to watch the film, worrying that it would be sold out when we got to the cinema, or that it wouldn't meet my extremely high expectations. But although the first screening we arranged to see was fully booked, the one an hour later had seats so the first issue wasn't a problem. But was my second issue...?
A hybrid of cartoon and regular movie, "Enchanted" begins with an animated Giselle searching for her dream man, convinced that one day he will come along. It is pretty much standard Disney fodder at this point - she meets Prince Edward, they immediately (within ten seconds) agree to marry the following day, and she is set for happily ever after in the space of five short minutes. However, Edward's evil stepmother wants to keep the crown for herself and so pushes Giselle down a well - where she emerges as a live character (Amy Adams), dressed in a ridiculously pouffy wedding dress (it is HUUUUGGGGEEE), out of a manhole in the centre of downtown Manhattan. Completely stunned and out of her depth, she wanders around searching for the Prince, who she is convinced will come to rescue her, but her search is proving fruitless - until she meets single father Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his little girl and somehow ends up sleeping in his apartment. At first he wants rid of her as he feels she is wrecking his life, and is decidedly odd to boot (breaking into a song and dance routine in Central Park - which everyone else ALSO seems to know the words AND the dance for? Making fairytale dresses out of his curtains?) But he quickly begins to warm to her.
Meanwhile Prince Edward (James Marsden) has given pursuit to Giselle to bring her back, along with Pip the Chipmunk. But will she want to be found. And Queen Nerissa (Sarandon - BLURGH!) has sent her minion Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) to give chase too - with the intention of killing Giselle. With a poisoned apple... (How original!)
The film is, quite simply, a fabulous modern-day fairytale. Although the characters transform from animations to real people, they still retain the qualities that they had previously - the overdramatic tendencies, the rosy outlook on life, the larger-than-life personnas. Giselle and Edward in particular blew me away with their genuine reactions to New York life as people who have previously lived in enchanted lands - to most people, going somewhere like New York would probably be something of a culture shock, but what if you have never witnessed anywhere as unfriendly, loud or scary before? How would you react? Giselle and Edward both tackle this in completely different ways appropriate to their characters - Giselle by trying to find a friendly person to help her (trying to chat to a tramp probably wasn't her brightest idea though) and Edward by attacking anything foreign to him (like public transport). Both Adams and Marsden provide most of the comedy in the film, but a small portion of the amusement has to go to Timothy Spall (who looks most like his cartoon version, funnily enough) as he dresses in various cliched disguises to try and fool Giselle into taking a bite of the poisoned apple while also trying to silence Pip, who is the only one who is onto him, and who finds that people in the real world cannot understand him given that he is a chipmunk!
But that Susan Sarandon - what an evil woman she plays. Grrrr. I would have hated Queen Nerissa anyway. But since she was played by a woman I for some reason detest anyway... it meant I simply hated her all the more...
Anyway, so I was in a cinema with an extremely varied mix of people; couples, families, teenagers, males and females, old and young. Everyone was laughing at the funny parts; at times the laughter almost detracted from the film itself. That just proves how universal the appeal of this film is. The film is essentially a parody of animated films, but it takes it that one step further by showing how an animated character would cope if transformed into a human and thrust into a real place - and how they would more-than-likely try and transform the world around them to try and regain a bit of the warmth from the animated world they came from. And this is what Giselle is clearly trying to do.
It's unlike me to say this, but I would thoroughly recommend this film to everyone and anyone. It combines animation, fairytale, chick-flick, musical, romance and comedy and creates something that might not be completely new, but it is different from anything else around at the moment. This, combined with an impressive performance from all the cast involved, some great special effects, fabulous musical numbers (not too many, thankfully) and incredible warmth, makes it my must-see film of 2007! And given its only two weeks from the end of the year, I don't see it changing before then...
*****SOME MEMORABLE QUOTES*****
Prince Edward: [threatening Robert with his sword] Have you any last words before I dispatch you? Robert: You have got to be kidding me! Prince Edward: Strange words!
Robert: Would you like me to call someone for you? Giselle: I don't think they would hear you from here.
[an angry midget walks under Giselle's wedding dress] Grumpy: Hey! Watch it, will ya? Giselle: Grumpy! Grumpy: Geez, lady! Are you for real? Giselle: I-I think so. *****"Enchanted" is currently screening at cinemas nationwide.*****
