Ella Enchanted (2004)

How sad is this?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

There are films that are meant to be great. Others, however, are just meant to be fun. This film belongs certainly to the second group, having been thought of as a family comedy. The plot is clearly based on Cinderella's tale, but here she is cursed to obey because of a bad-taste gift given by an unconventional fairy godmother. The whole story then develops in her effort to free herself from this gift and the way people take advantage of it to manipulate her. Gradually, everything becomes more predictable and my interest has diminished but never disappeared because it remained funny enough. The way Ella and the Prince know each other is, in my perspective, the poorer solution the script could have created to cross them. The idea of ​​that talking book sounded kind of stupid too. Dialogues and even some jokes are sometimes common and boring. Throughout the film, medieval elements and things from our time (miniskirts, fan clubs, automatic ladders etc.) intentionally intersect and blend. The film also tried to introduce some Disney- style musical moments, but I have some doubts about whether or not it was a good idea.Anne Hathaway, still very young here, excels in her character, adorable and yet full of personality. Hugh Dancy was a satisfactory Prince, the same could be said of Aidan McArdle and Joanna Lumley, who played supporting characters. Cary Elwes was a predictable, weak and rather risible villain, but I think it's the bad idealization of the character and not the actor himself.Overall, this movie is worth it if you just want to laugh a little or spend an hour and a half with family in a nice way. However, if you are looking for a cinematographic work of art, this film is not for you.

The whole move was so horribly written, played, and executed. It's certainly different from the usual fairy tail love story, because it's the worst love story in the history of all love stories. I really, really feel sorry for the people who actually paid real money to watch this disaster of a movie. Spoiler: I really despise how they have the old Victorian Era setting but also have modern invention, like the escalator. No actor or actress in this world could make this abomination half decent. I like Anne Hathaway. She performed some of favorite movies of all time. So it's very curious to me way the hell in the world would she CHOOSE to play in this movie? It like a stain on her career!

"Ella Enchanted" is the kind of kids movie that, if you're older and have kids or younger siblings, you can sit down and watch it with them, they'll enjoy it and you can just forget it afterward. For a kids movie, it's not unbearably stupid, nor does it treat kids like they don't have brains, it's just a very generic kids fairy-tale movie filled with simplistic, one-dimensional villains, musical numbers, goofy side-characters, and an obvious love story.Ella of Frell (Anne Hathaway) is is given the gift of obedience by the fairy Lucinda (Vivicia A. Fox) and must keep her gift secret so people can't use it against her. After Ella's mother (Donna Dent) passes away, her father (Patrick Bergin) remarries several years later to Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley), Ella's generic evil stepmother, who has two daughters who are Ella's generic evil stepsisters, Hattie (Lucy Punch) and Olive (Jennifer Higham). The two stepsisters discover Ella's gift of obedience and use it to make her life miserable, forcing her to steal from a mall and get rid of her best friend (Parminder Nagra). Ella, ventures out to find Lucinda to take back her gift, with the help of her house fairy Mandy's (Minnie Driver) boyfriend Benny (Jimi Mistry) whom Mandy has accidentally turned into a book, Slannen (Aidan McArdle), an elf who wants to be a lawyer, and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), whom Ella is at first repulsed by because she believes he is like his evil uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes). As they search for Lucinda, Ella and Char begin to fall in love with one another and Edgar, learning of Ella's obedience, hopes to use her in his plan to assassinate Char before he can claim the throne.The villains of the film are all generic, one-dimensional characters that we have already seen before. Edgar is the evil uncle who wants to rule the kingdom who has killed his brother and now wants his nephew out of the picture, like Scar (Jeremy Irons) from "The Lion King". Then, we have the mean stepmother and stepsisters who treat Ella poorly, like with the stepmother and stepsisters from "Cinderella". While the main characters are given a little more to their characters than just a generic character-type, it doesn't always lead anywhere. Slannen says he wants to be a lawyer and that he does not sing. He has one quick moment where he acts like a lawyer, but in the last scene of the movie he is singing when he has made it clear he doesn't want to sing or perform.The two main musical numbers that I remember being performed in the movie, Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and Queen's "Somebody to Love" serve no purpose to the actual story. They aren't like the songs you would get in a Disney movie where they are used to further the plot, these songs bring the movie to a screeching halt. It feels like these songs are in the movie for two reasons: 1. Because it's a kid's movie and kid's movies need musical numbers in it, and 2. To show off Anne Hathaway's singing. Now, Anne Hathaway is a talented singer and she does a fantastic job in this movie, especially with "Somebody to Love", but that does not dismiss that these songs are pointless to the overall movie and bring the movie to a standstill.At the end of the movie, Ella breaks the spell of obedience by looking at herself in a mirror and telling her to no longer be obedient. For the whole run of the movie, I was questioning why neither her mother or Mandy the household fairy told her to not be obedient to anyone ever again, which would have solved the whole movie within the first ten minutes. I find it very hard to believe that no one in Ella's family thought of this idea for all the years that she had the curse."Ella Enchanted" is a movie that the best way to describe it would be generic. It's not terrible, but it does not stand out when it comes to the long list of kid's fairy tale movies that exist. It has the regular love story that you can see coming from a mile away, simplistic villains with no depth or charm to them who are just made as evil as possible so you hate them and like the heroes more in comparison, goofy side-characters, musical numbers, and all the other stuff you'd expect to find in a kid's movie. Once again, it's perfectly acceptable for kids. While generic and simplistic, it does treat kids like they have a brain and if you have kids or a younger sibling, you can watch with them and forget about it when it's done without feeling like you've lost brain cells.

Baby Ella (Anne Hathaway) was given a 'gift of obedience' by Lucinda the fairy (Vivica A. Fox). It is more of a curse which the unreasonable fairy refuses to undo. She must do everything she's told to do. It's really unreasonable that nobody notices this curse. Are the townfolks really stupid? When her stepsister (Lucy Punch) notices the curse, Ella has no choice but to leave and try to undo the curse. In the meanwhile, Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy) has fallen for her.Anne Hathaway is cute and lovely. She and Hugh Dancy make a cute pair. But every time somebody does the curse and can't figure it out, it gets really annoying.