THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
As we move into the 21st century, you would think Walt Disney would run out of fairy tales. Interestingly, they proved that they still have gas in the tank with Enchanted.
PLOT
The film starts in the animated world of Andalasia where animals can talk and musical numbers occur within almost every interaction. Prince Edward appears to find true love with the beautiful woman Giselle, but his sorceress stepmother Queen Narissa refuses to surrender the throne any time soon. So she disguises herself as an older woman and pushes her into a well that takes her to a place she wouldn't imagine, a 21st century live action New York. On her own at night, she would find shelter thanks to divorce lawyer Robert Philip and his young daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Originally, Robert does not believe where she came from, but offers to help her get home due to his daughter's insistence. By morning, Giselle overstays her welcome by having animals help her clean up his apartment and use curtains to make a new dress for herself. Robert would then lose his patience when his fashion designer fiance Nancy Tremaine (Idina Menzel) mistakes them to be seeing each other. When he takes her to work, his secretary cannot locate Andalasia which makes it harder for him to believe where she comes from. He even gets told off by his boss when she cries of the Banks couple who plan to be divorcing each other. Robert considers parting ways with her after this, but again chooses to continue sticking with her. In the meantime, Prince Edward enters the live action world to find his love, as does her chipmunk friend Pip (Jeff Bennett), but the latter loses his voice on the other side. Narissa sends her disciple Nathaniel to poison her in order to ensure Giselle is out of the picture. The princess-to-be is able to pull off singing with the public in Central Park to give Robert advice on how to show affection to Nancy, which appears to work when she sends her flowers. With Pip ruining Nathaniel's opportunities to poison her, Narissa vows to come to New York and eliminate her threat herself. Edward does reunite with the woman he loves, but she insists him to explore New York a little longer before going home. After having lunch, they go to a Costume Ball where Robert and Nancy are also attending. With help from Morgan, Giselle goes shopping and gets a modern dress in preparation. During the event, she is able to share a dance with Robert, as do Edward and Nancy, but it is during that time where to princess-to-be realizes she loves Robert more than the actual prince. Before she tries to leave as planned, Narissa returns and takes advantage to finally poison her. Just as she drops, Edward stops his stepmother from fleeing. Nathaniel appears as well to expose her plan and confess with his involvement. Edward tries to wake her back up with true love's kiss, but it doesn't work from him. Instead, the kiss works from Robert. When Giselle wakes up, Narissa turns into a dragon and takes hostage of the man she loves. She then climbs onto the top of the building to lure out Giselle and kill her. With unexpected aid from Pip pressing onto the spire she stood on, the dragon-sorceress would fall to her death, but Giselle would stop Robert from falling. As they embrace romantically, Edward would return to Andalasia to marry Nancy instead and Pip would write an autobiography of his experience. The film would end with Nathaniel staying in the live action world as well, writing his own autobiography, whereas Giselle would have her own happily ever after by starting her own fashion design business and form a happy family with Robert and Morgan.
THOUGHTS
For someone who grew up with decades of animated films at my childhood disposal, I always found myself comfortable with the energy they create. And while this one is much different from past fairy tales, it doesn't skip the beats but embraces them all. Thanks to that, Director Kevin Lima makes the experience furthermore satisfying to sit down to. Before Mary Poppins made a return in 2018, it didn’t cross my mind for a hybrid film of live action and animation to be made in the 21st century. So seeing this film became a big surprise because both sides generally paid off visually. Aside from that, the live action costumes feel just as alive as the animation is supposed to be. Getting to the point, the main reason I found this enjoyable is how it gets as patient as possible to share that true love is possible but won't always be found at first sight. The search is different for everyone and similar results cannot guaranteed but once you find it, the whole journey would have been worthwhile. You understand that very well thanks to Amy Adams' flawless performance of Giselle. Aside from singing beautifully in 'Happy Working Song' and "That's How You Know", we easily enjoy her presence for being an extrovert kind of person, who only focuses on finding happiness. That perspective is so effective it stopped a couple from divorcing. That was cute to witness because it showed that people sometimes need to be reminded how precious their love is before they choose to let it go. Even though being happy matters to her deeply, she accepts that she can be more than one thing. She went from being excited of feeling upset to not being hesitant in her attempt to save Robert. She did have love for Edward off of admiring his bravery, she ultimately picked Robert not just for getting to know him more in their given time together, but also how he was able to teach her that even if you find happiness, it won't be perfect. Patrick Dempsey was a good choice in handling pessimism the character expresses, which is realistic due to said heartbreak and line of work he's involved with. After getting divorced, it became a challenge for him to express joy. Low and behold, he came around and fell for Giselle instead of Nancy because she encouraged him to express it and to not take your loved ones for granted. In a way, they helped each other come out of their shells and that sparked the happily ever after in creative fashion. Plus, hearing 'So Close' by Jon McLaughlin was the best song of the movie for me, due to how to captures how much both characters love each other and were nervous to say it out loud. On the other hand, James Marsden was a delight playing Edward. He was the funniest part of this movie for being highly clumsy in a world he's unaware of. It's hard to not laugh at him stabbing a bus with a sword and getting ran over by a group of bicyclists before an attempt to sing. Speaking of which, he indeed expressed a nice voice whenever he sung 'True Love's Kiss'. You do feel bad for the guy because he had no idea how bad his stepmom was as he only thought of the good like Giselle would. But on the bright side, he still gets the girl even though that didn't need to happen. It seemed that he and Nancy hit it off so fast just off of how enjoy living simple, thus love at first sight. I even got to give a shoutout to Pip, who definitely was the unsung hero in his own wild adventure. Even when briefly losing his voice in hilarious fashion, he somehow pulled off taking part of the villain's defeat, which is pretty crazy. For an adventure like his, he definitely deserved to write a book about it. Last but not least, almost every fairy tale needs a villain to root against and we're given that in the embodiment of Narissa. Portrayed greatly by Susan Sarandon, this is the kind of villain that is pure selfish of her power, along with being manipulative and cruel to anyone around her because she can. It can be easy to fall for the beauty she displays, but that's not a factor when she turns into a frightening dragon or uses other dangerous spells. She takes her manipulation so far that she'll make people believe she cares for them when that's far from true. Enter Timothy Spall who left an impressive performance of Nathaniel. Like Edward, he is a guy that searches for love and looked at the wrong area that was an evil queen. He was so insecure that he spent a long while preventing the prince from finding love before him, hence the opening troll hunting. Once he accepted that he was in the wrong and that loving yourself is enough, he did the right thing calling out the queen for her schemes. Although he wasn't in the sequel, I like to think that he continued maintaining his happiness with his writing and the love he received from people who enjoyed what he had/wanted to say deep down. While I admit this film is as enjoyable as past classics, that doesn't mean I had no issues with it especially when re watching. So it is a creative concept that Narissa knows of the live action universe, but if she does, did others know as well? It seems like no one else did until Edward. That's crazy because if that well is the only source to transport between worlds, it becomes harder to believe the queen was the only one that knew. Anybody could've fell on that well on accident for all we know. You guys know I don't like continuity errors, so I easily found myself confused when Giselle enters the live action world with earrings when she didn't have any on before falling into the well. You want to talk about scenes that are funny but should be? How about the cab driver giving no attention to Robert saving Giselle from falling. That's an almighty level of ignoring things I don't think an actual cabbie would pull off. I know Giselle can be a little gullible, but does she or does she not know that the old lady (Narissa) pushed her into the well? First she tells Robert she fell, but when the lady returns, she remembers her and calls her out on what happened. It's a funny gag that Pip loses his original voice, but why exactly is this possible? You can say it's part of them becoming real, but everyone else got to keep their voices when they went through, so it appears uneven of a rule. It's honestly more uneven when no one spots Narissa whenever she uses any form of liquid to get a glimpse of the live action world. And if he can't talk, how is Giselle able to convince everyone at the park to take part of her musical number? It's not like she has powers in comparison to Narissa. And why couldn't stray dogs & cats be useful in cleaning up the apartment? That sounds more realistic than fucking cockroaches. Also, I don't blame Giselle for making clothes out of curtains, but she should've asked Robert for clothes before going forward. I'm even wondering how did Edward pay for the hotel he stayed in? It may be cheap, but it ain't free and it's not like he wouldn't pay for it since he is part of a royal family. And how the hell does Nathaniel keep getting jobs in short notice? You can't just walk in and ask for it. That's more confusing than the outfits he pulls off. You can call it an easy laugh for a dog to pee on Edward's foot, but I'm irritated that the owner doesn't even try to stop her pet and apologize. It takes a doorman to remind her that she can't even let her pet do that and it's ridiculous. Other than that, this can still be fine for what it is. In short, Enchanted is another entertaining Walt Disney film for being at its most genuine of a fun adventure. If you love past fairy tales from top to bottom, you would not mind seeing this too.
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