‘Enchanted’ can be fun, but gets tiresome
“Enchanted” starts almost like a cliché of an old-fashioned Walt Disney animated feature.
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The lovely Giselle is riding through the forest, singing with her forest friends about her.
Her voice catches the attention of the prince and he immediately asks her to marry him, the next day!
I guess you don’t have to rent a hall when you are the prince, but don’t you at least have to give the cater a little notice?
But with help from the woodland creatures, Giselle readies for her big wedding. Ah, a dream come true.
But it wouldn’t be a movie without some conflict. That comes from the mother-in-law, who happens to be the mother-in-law of mother-in-laws. She’s nasty.
She doesn’t want someone replacing her as queen so she arranges for the sweet, lovely Giselle to fall into a massive fountain where she goes hurtling toward impending doom. She is going to a place where “nobody ever lives happily ever after.”
And boom! Giselle finds herself in the sewer system of real-life New York City. She pulls off the manhole cover. She lifts herself onto the street, where, of course, we find loud, honking cars. She is almost hit. People yell for her to get out of the road. Cars crash into each other. You’ve seen it before.
What is funny is this live-action Giselle is wearing such a wide skirt, she could probably sleep on it overnight.
Now played by Amy Adams of “Junebug” fame, she continues to use her sing-song, goody-two-shoes voice while sashaying down the street, looking for a kind soul.
Kindness doesn’t come from the elderly homeless guy. She begs for a few kind words before she goes back to searching for her prince in this strange world. He responds by stealing her tiara.
Her modern-day rescuer is single-dad Robert (played by Patrick Dempsey) who is with his daughter, played by Rachel Covey.
He offers his apartment until she can get herself together, at the urging of his young daughter, who is ‘enchanted’ by this princess.
Meanwhile, the prince takes the same dunk in the pond. He’s played by James Marsden. With him is his manservant, played creepily by Timothy Spall. An even creepier chipmunk follows him. It’s cute in animation world, but not the real world.
The biggest hoot comes from Susan Sarandon, playing the real-life Queen Narissa. (Is that because she is narcissistic?)
The film alternates from being fun, a parody and just plain annoying. Early on, Giselle decides to clean Robert’s apartment, enlisting the help of dirty seagulls, rats and other assorted animals. These creatures look cute in animation, but it is downright gross watching them traverse the apartment. Ugh! And in the park, when Giselle starts singing, Robert asks her to please stop. It’s embarrassing. This is real life, remember? Unfortunately for him, a group of street musicians hear her song, are taken by it, and begin singing and playing it themselves. Soon the whole park is singing and dancing in perfect choreography. It’s a cute concept but the plot gets stretched. You just want someone to slap the sweet Giselle after awhile. Also, the little Covey girl gets lost in the story. At first, you get the idea she is the little girl who believes in the enchanted world of princes and princesses. She is the catalyst to get this strange creature and her lonely father together. Except her role quickly falls off in the picture. Child labor laws? “Enchanted” can be interesting, especially when going from the animated to real-life world. It just isn’t enchanting long enough. I was more enchanted when it was over. ENCHANTED • Directed by Kevin Lima and written by Bill Kelly • Runtime: 107 minutes Two stars out of five • Walt Disney Pictures FROM WEEKENDR, Sept. 5, 2008
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