Enchanted - review

Enchanted (PG)

Dir. Kevin Lima

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

It’s Christmas, the halls have been decked, the cupboards stocked and goose is thinking he should give weight watchers a call in the New Year. There really couldn’t be a better time to treat yourself to a modern day slice of ‘happy ever after’ with this Disney reinvention of the classic handsome prince / beautiful princess fairytale.
Enchanted was my wife’s pick to be reviewed, and that gave me a handy excuse to drag our two boys to witness this unashamedly ‘most girly’ movie. We emerged having really enjoyed this ironic, post-modern flavoured romantic comedy, which has biting wit, real heart and much to my youngest son’s delight – even an evil dragon.
So princess Giselle (the scrummy Amy Adams) is all set for a two dimensional marriage to her dashing Prince Edward (James Marsden), when her wicked stepmother to be (Susan Sarandon) banishes her from her cartoon paradise to real world New York - "a place where no-one lives happily ever after".
Sashaying in the big green footprints of the wildly successful Shrek films, Enchanted manages to chalk up a valiant repost to the recent slew of pop culture CGI movies that have tried to move audiences on from the traditional Disney values.
The swoony (in my wife’s opinion at least) single father Robert (Patrick Dempsey), who doesn't believe in true love, is the chap who ends up babysitting the gorgeous but hopelessly naïve Princes Giselle.
One thing leads to another – you know, massive sing-a-long song and dance routine through central park, a Cinderella style cleaning of Robert’s apartment through enlisting of the city’s rats, flies, pigeons and cockroaches to help, a surrogate mother daughter shopping spree and of course a romantic showdown in a handily timed ball. It’s all a lot of good - if deeply soppy fun, but then just as my sons looked like they might make a bolt for the exit, the film delivers an exciting dragon verses princess showdown which meant we all went home happy after all.
Frothy and lightweight in equal measure and played with admirable straight faces when embracing concepts such as love’s true kiss being the most powerful force in the universe – even on the mean streets of Manhattan, there’s little here not to love. Except perhaps the fact that House of the Mouse can’t seem to shake the notion that a woman's greatest aspiration in life is that her hunky prince will arrive and whisk her off to be a happy domestic wife. Erm, actually…

Out of 5 you have to go with a quality 3.5 (a fairy tastic tale)...

Darkmatters ratings (look out for the all new DM ratings in January '08!!):

Action ööö – Soppiness but fun soppiness
Laughs ööö – Plenty
Horror öö – Wicked witch has her moments
Babes ööö – Adams is cutie

Overall ööö1/2 (good stuff)