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| Name: Ryan Roe Email: prawnrr-rmv@this.com-yahoo.com Position: Movie / Television / Comic Book / Trivia Geek View Ryan's Personal Profile |
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| Gee, when was the last time I did one of these "Movie Vestibules"? Let me check... Wow. Battleship Potemkin, eh? That's been a while. Let's see if I remember how to talk about movies. This week I saw Enchanted, which doesn't feature any baby carriages tumbling down stairs. It's the story of Giselle (Amy Adams), an animated cutie who lives in the old-fashioned Disney fairy-tale kingdom of Andalasia. She spends all her time pining for a prince to come sweep her off her feet, and in the movie's early, all-animated scenes, Prince Edward (James Marsden) does just that, and as soon as they make eye contact they're betrothed. During these animated sequences, I found myself lamenting this decade's lack of traditional hand-drawn animated features. The animation here was as excellent as you would expect from Disney, with vibrant colors that leaped off the screen right into my ranch-seasoned popcorn. The engagement of Giselle and Edward doesn't sit well with the witchy Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who wastes no time in casting Giselle into a strange, foreign land... that of contemporary New York City. (Sometimes it seems like half the movies that are produced in America take place in New York. As a current New Yorker watching the movie in Texas, I had to fight to keep myself from yelling out, "OH, I KNOW WHERE THAT SUBWAY STOP IS!" or "HEY, I ATE SOME PIZZA AT THAT STREET CORNER LAST MONTH!") So Giselle, now in non-animated form, must comprehend the big city while waiting for her prince to come rescue her. Fortunately, she has the help of Robert (Patrick Dempsey), a widowed divorce lawyer with a young daughter. When I first heard about this movie, I was intrigued but wary. The idea of an innocent fantasy character dropped into the real world had potential, but it was produced by Disney, the makers of the "Disney Princesses" line of merchandise, whose motto is that all the greatest women are pretty and live in castles. Was there any chance that Giselle could be a well-written, emulate-able character? What kind of heroine would she be? The answer: As embodied by Amy Adams, she's delightful. Adams perfectly portrays Giselle's sense of wonder and her naivete, her ebullience and her developing sense of self, and there wasn't a second when I didn't believe that she had just dropped in from a cartoon. Happily, Giselle does become smarter and more assertive as the story progresses. I cheered (quietly) when she even picked up a sword near the film's climax (speaking of which, was it just me, or did that CG dragon look like it was animated using technology from 10 years ago?). The filmmakers are obviously fond of the classic Disney oeuvre. It was a relief to see a clever but affectionate send-up of the fairy tale genre that doesn't resort to the pop-culture-parody obnoxiousness or "Hey, look how clever we are!" antics of the Shrek franchise. I'm thinking specifically of the "Happy Working Song" musical number which takes place shortly after Giselle lands in the real world, and which made me laugh audibly. Speaking of the songs, it was an inspired notion to include three actual-for-real musical numbers, and to get Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz to write them. "That's How You Know" is so catchy, in fact, that I ran home and immediately bought it from iTunes.* With any luck, the success of this film will encourage Disney to make a new 2-D animated musical. (As far as I know, the upcoming Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel are not musicals). Yes, I quite liked this movie. And yet, I just wish they'd gone a liiittle bit farther with the girl power aspect. Giselle's awakening was evident enough to us grown-ups who can catch the implications of costume changes, but for the sake of the little girls (and boys!) in the audience I wish they had actually spelled it out a bit more. Early on, Patrick Dempsey gives his daughter a book about important women; it would have been great to see Giselle marveling at it and saying something like, "Oh my! Women in this kingdom can do ANYTHING! One of them is even running for PRESIDENT... whatever that means!" Would that have been too obvious? I guess I was just hoping for a little more emphasis on Giselle figuring out that she can do things for herself, and maybe taking more action during that climactic scene. (Also, it's interesting to compare the lessons learned by Giselle to those learned by Nathaniel, the henchman/admirer of Queen Narissa.) But I'm not a girl, or the parent of a little girl, so maybe I'm overthinking it and it's all going to be okay. In conclusion, on my brilliant ratings scale of Yay!/Yeah.../Yecch!, Enchanted scores a pretty solid Yay! *To be perfectly accurate, I first had to wait until the next morning, at which point I flew across the country, then took a bus to a subway to my apartment, where I immediately bought the song on iTunes, but you get the idea. Comments on this post are closed. |
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| I think people overthink how movies affect kids in general. I watched every single Disney princess movie as a kid and I don't run around wearing tiaras and waiting to be rescued. There is a woman at my work who wears tiaras sometimes, though. I wonder what movies she watched as a kid. |
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| I should probably go see that. And Carolyn - She probably watched Batman. |
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| I saw it today and really enjoyed it as well. Amy Adams is always so darn likable in the movies I've seen her in (Junebug, Catch Me If You Can, Enchanted). She worked perfectly in that role. Apparently we have very similar tastes, because I also went home and immediately downloaded "That's How You Know" from iTunes. During the movie, I wondered if Alan Menken might have had something to do with the songs, and sure enough he wrote the music (and the score for the whole movie). I really like his stuff. Plus, having him do the music was like a throwback to some of the early-to-mid-90's Disney movies, which have a special nostalgic place in my heart. So yeah, I liked it too. And I'm very jealous of your ranch-seasoned popcorn. |
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| Carolyn: So maybe I am over-thinking it, but when it comes to stuff that impressionable young minds will see, I guess that's better than under-thinking. Either way, I value your opinion on the princess issue, considering you yourself are a broad. Anthony:You should see it. Jason: Weren't those songs good, in the classic Disney musical vein? I've read about a James Marsden/Idina Menzel duet that was cut... It'll be interesting to hear that one on the soundtrack. |
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