Movie Review: Enchanted

7/10

Another day, another Disney romance. Dear oh dear.

Or is that the right approach? Well, you'd be forgiven after so many years of glass slippers and "whole new world"s for viewing another princess-in-trouble plot with a certain amount of trepidation.

But wait! We're in the noughties now, era of irony and self deprecation, and Disney seem to have caught up with this little trend at last. Of course, those of you who saw the frankly genius "Emperors New Groove" have already experienced something similar, they have never been so self aware as they are in "Enchanted". The classic Disney references (mainly Snow White and Sleeping Beauty but with a smidgen of Beauty and The Beast) are thick and fast and so is the humour - hey, its kid's humour, but anything is an improvement on deep and meaningful love stories between drawings.

We must also remember there has been a current trend (Shrek, Toy Story etc) of movies attempting a balance between comedy for adults and fun for kids - and some attempts have been much more successful than others, so a clever kids movie is a tough thing to do. Any film that strays to far to one side of the equation risks totally alienating the audiences instead of drawing them in.

So, the film then. Amy Adams plays your basic princess who is two seconds from marrying her basic prince when she's kicked down your basic wishing well into your far from basic New York. This is basically where all the comedy comes from. When in New York she loses none of her Disney princess powers, getting animals to do the tidying, getting crowds of people who've never met to sing a song they've never heard, you know the sorts of things. To see things like this happening in New York is just inherently amusing, since the city of New York is not known for its fun loving, love your fellow man reputation.

Mixing her up with a divorced, divorce lawyer and his fairy tale loving daughter is a good touch, you can see the choice of career as being the exact opposite of her happily ever after approach - this guy KNOWS it's never that easy. Plus he's getting engaged, but only after five years in a relationship and with a LOT of thought, unlike our Princess, who got engaged the minute she met the Prince, because that's what you do.

And if you haven't called the ending by now then shame on you.

But that's not what's important, is it? What's the journey like to that ending? Well it's really good fun for the most part, all the characters from the opening cartoon are fairly well acted and realised - particularly James Marsden's Prince Edward who is simultaneously the perfect prince and the worst sort of egomaniac. He appears to be having a whale of a time, and is a fine example of what's required from all the fairy tale characters - absolute commitment to their roles. There's no mugging or "knowing" overacting from any of them, since that would totally derail the movie and make it one step from basically being "Disney Movie" (a la Scary Movie, Superhero Movie etc).

That being said, Susan Sarandon's overacted evil queen is probably the weak link, ironic since she, aside from Timothy Spall, is the most experienced actor present, and as soon as she becomes involved we slide down a few notches in my estimation into a bit of a silly, camp resolution with none of the irony or intelligence that has marked the rest of the film, aside from a sort of revisionist reversal of roles (hero becomes damsel in distress, sort of thing).

Any proper Disney love story has to have its songs and while some are quite awful, the so sugary my teeth hurt ballad "So Close" and the pop song "Ever After" are particularly dire; the few truly good songs, "Happy Working Song" and the sequence in Central Park, are as good musically as they are funny, so I reckon it more or less balances out on the song front. Musicals (with a few exceptions) have a really hard time getting me enjoying myself, but these songs aren't half bad, and given the context of a Disney Princess I found them perfectly logical inclusions. And yeah, I know it's not technically a musical - I mean films that suddenly break into song then, OK?

Of course all the loose ends get tied up and (almost) everyone gets their happy ending - it's a fricking Disney Film after all, but Enchanted really stands out as one of their best recent efforts and while it's not as good in my estimation as Emperors New Groove for comedy, I think it strikes a very good balance between fun for kids and comedy that still translates to adults.

That being said, there are errors of judgement on the adult fun / child fun side, Mrs Algo pointed out that any child will be extremely concerned at the captivity of Pip The Chipmunk (which any adult can see is a joke on the old "chained to the wall" theme) since it simply appears that the poor rodent is being crucified on a coathanger. I laughed, but kids may be very upset. Luckily he escapes this particular predicament incredibly fast, but is soon trapped in a glass jug and not seen again for some time, another thing that may worry younger viewers.

In conclusion, do see it, like I did, with an open mind. It's silly, yes, but still highly enjoyable.

A