Enchanted

By Karen Wilson

Average User Rating:

MPAA Rating: PG for some scary images and mild innuendo.

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Theatrical Release: November 21, 2007
Genre: Comedy
Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes

Plot Synopsis: Giselle, an (animated) young maiden with many furry animal friends is longing for true love's kiss when prince Edward overhears her singing and joins in on a duet. So enamored by her loveliness, he vows to marry her the next day. But his jealous evil stepmother waylays the bride-to-be and sends her tumbling down a wishing well to a "place with no happily ever afters"--the (non-animated) Times' Square in New York. There the bewildered Giselle meets Robert, a single Dad divorce attorney with a six-year-old named Morgan and a distrust of fairy tales.

Sex/Nudity: There's a lot of talk about kissing, of the "true love" variety, and the more worldly Morgan fills in Giselle on the fact that boys only want one thing—she just doesn't know what that is. There's also a fair amount of sexual chemistry between Giselle and Robert, and a couple of Disney happy ending kisses.

Violence/Gore: Queen Narcissa shoves various characters down the wishing well into the real world, Nathaniel abuses Pip, Giselle’s chipmunk friend to keep him quiet, heroic Prince Edward stabs a city bus with his sword (barely missing a kindly granny and her groceries) and an irate Narcissa turns into a fire-breathing dragon who threatens to kills people, including Robert.

Profanity: A flabbergasted Giselle might utter a "gosh" but that's about as blue as the dialog gets.

Will Kids Like It?
Any princess loving pre-schooler will fall head over heals for Giselle's wide-eyed sweetness, though all of the fairy tale versus real world irony should sail straight over her head. Grade-school viewers will probably laugh more at the story book characters trapped in the real world, such as Edward's confusion over the TV (he calls it the "magic mirror") and Giselle's propensity for turning the curtains into dresses (complete with dress-size holes left behind). Teens will probably be too syrupy sentimental for this age group, except for the most tried-and-true romantics.

Will Parents Like It?
With strong performances and clever quips about city living, parents should find the story as swoon-worthy as their daughters will. You might even be able to drag along your Gray's Anatomy-obsessed child-less girlfriends to ogle Patrick "McDreamy" Dempsey.

Kaboose Review: Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are fairy tale princesses so familiar to most little girls they could be their next-door neighbors. Particularly those animated versions drawn during the '60s and found marching in the Electric Light Parade at the Magic Kingdom. Now the Disney company has turned our familiarity into a loving spoof of its own product in Enchanted, a fish out of water story about fairy tale characters interacting with the real world.

Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams plays Giselle, a pretty young maiden we first see in her animated universe, that displays all of the well-worn conventions of storybook ingénues from the wide-eyed innocence and the familiarity with woodland creature to the propensity to break into cheerful song. It's that very song which charms her charming prince, a valiant yet clichéd fellow named Edward (the soap opera handsome James Marsden) who rescues Giselle from an ogre and then vows to marry her the next day.

But Edward's evil stepmother (Susan Sarandon) doesn't want Giselle usurping her crown and so in old crone disguise lures the hapless girl to the castle's wishing waterfall and then pushes her in. This waterfall well turns out to be a portal out of the animated world and into the real world, via Manhattan's busiest intersection, a sewer grate in Times' Square. Now stuck in reality, Giselle stands out like a clueless country rube with her white hoop skirts and beehive hairdo of curls.

Fortunately a kindly single Dad, Robert (Grey's Anatomy's own McDreamy doctor, Patrick Dempsey) offers Giselle a helping hand and a couch to crash on. But disappointments in his own love life and work as a divorce attorney has made Robert the most pragmatic, anti-romantic reticent to teach his daughter Morgan to believe in fairy tales. Giselle sets out to convince Robert otherwise and help him woo his long suffering girlfriend Nancy (musical theater regular Idina Menzel) by enlisting the aid of New York City's woodland creatures (rats, pigeons, flies and cockroaches) to tidy his apartment and a giant mass of singing and dancing Central Park goers to "Tell Her You Love Her." In turn Robert introduces Giselle to the foreign concept of “dating” and modern conveniences.

All of the film's music is pitch perfect, which is not surprising since Disney regulars Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, who also wrote the music for the Little Mermaid and Aladdin, composed it. The movie is also filled with some utterly charming acting. Even the hardest New York heart couldn't help but be softened by Adams' performance as Giselle. Her incredible facial expressions and body language seems exactly like an animated character come to life yet without being cloying or forced. She also helps deliver in a believable way the film's message that faith in romance and happily ever after isn't a total fantasy.

Fans of New York locations in the movies will be tickled by the movie's settings, as the characters walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and eat pastrami on rye in Katz's Deli. The film's only small misstep is the performance by Susan Sarandon as the evil Queen. While Adams and even Marsden are able to tow the line between being spoofs and being ridiculous, Sarandon goes way beyond it. Maybe its the elaborate costumes and her character's ability to shoot electric charges from her fingers and turn into a fire breathing dragon, but Saradon takes jokey lines about evil stepmothers to a whole new level of camp melodrama.

Directed by: Kevin Lima
Cast: Amy Adams (Giselle), Patrick Dempsey (Robert), James Marsden (Prince Edward), Susan Sarandon (Queen Narcissa), Idina Menzel (Nancy), Timothy Spall (Nathaniel)

Karen Wilson is a freelance writer living in New York City.