Enchanted

Enchanted is a classic fairy tale about a princess Giselle who lands up in New York city due to a spell cast by an evil queen. After her arrival in New York she meets a divorce attorney and starts staying with him as she has nowhere to go. Let us however start at the beginning. Princess Giselle, played by Amy Adams meets and falls in love with Prince Edward essayed by James Marsden and they decided to get married. However, the prince’s stepmother Queen Narissa portrayed by Susan Sarandon is against the marriage as it will deprive her of power and control over the kingdom. So she disguises herself as an old woman and tricks Princess Giselle in to falling in to a wishing well.

Rating: 2.5/5

The twist in the tale shows Princess Giselle emerging out of a manhole in a New York street. Here Patrick Dempsey makes an appearance as Robert Philip a single father and lawyer, about to propose to his long time girlfriend, Nancy played by Idina Menzel. He takes in Giselle upon the pleadings of his daughter who is quite taken in by the Princess and her charms. As she spends more time with Robert, Giselle starts wondering about her feelings for Prince Edward.

Amy Adams in Enchanted

The film is quite sweet and has beautiful songs, befitting a musical sung by the actors themselves. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz are the musical talents behind the film and do full justice to its musical score. The How Do I know? song picturised in Central Park is nice and quite spectacular. We also see Princess Giselle communicating with animals through her songs in the first half of the movie. But it’s funny when pigeons and rats respond to her song in New York city as she sets about cleaning Robert’s apartment, in the second half. Another highlight of the film is the animated chipmunk who follows Giselle from her past in to the present day.

Susan Sarandon in Enchanted

There are some glaring omissions in the film and it has a predictable ending expected of fairy tales. It is touching to see the Princess awaken to the cruel reality of the world, as she tries to judge everything through eyes of innocence. But you can ignore them and sit back and enjoy the film with your kids. Amy Adams plays the beautiful princess with a sweet voice perfectly while James Marsden is funny as Prince Edward. Susan Sarandon as Queen Narissa is mean and wicked but has a limited role.

Patrick Dempsey and James Marsden in Enchanted

The film uses animation to blend with live characters and this generates a fantasy effect in the film pretty well. So we have characters passing from the distinct animated world to the real world and back in clear distinctions between the two worlds. The idea is not novel but is well picturised and the movie retains your interest throughout. All character names are a tribute to former actors who portrayed them earlier.

The beauty of Enchanted lies in its simple plot and makes it worth a watch for kids as well as adults.

Rating: 2.5/5

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Musical, Romance, Reviews, Animation, Fantasy, Comedy, Family, Adventure . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.