Here is a movie that when I first saw the trailer for it, I was immediately on-board with due to the opportunities for greatness that I could see for Disney if they crafted the movie the right way….
…but, I was greatly disappointed. Disney could have made such a MUCH BETTER film if they would have actually stopped and thought about the possibilities of making fun of themselves in their own movie. I mean, think about it, you start out with a complete cliche cartoon of a movie, totally riding on the coat tails of every other Disney cartoon that has been made, and then you take that naive and vulnerable cartoon character and stick them right in the middle of real-life New York city and watch them learn how to be a human….that is revolutionary!
Yet, what did Disney do? They tried to achieve that level of greatness through cliche situations, chemistry-less romantic story lines that ended formulaic, characters that rarely showed any signs of real growth, and all of that combined with a cast that really left a lot to the imagination in terms of believability. There was just so much left on the cutting room floor, maybe even the pre-production floor, in terms of story and pace and character development that I was left with an abundance of over-flattery and fluff.
Though I was not impressed by the movie and at best, it was “cute” in its most basic form, one of the highlights was the acting of James Marsden as “Prince Edwards.” I really thought he did a decent job of “over-acting” his part as the chivalry inspired “good guy” in this film and if I laughed at all, it was from his performance. He seemed to have that tongue-in-cheek personality down very well and actually succeeded in providing me with mild humor.
In the end, it was another Disney let down that could have been so great…which I think a lot of modern-day-Disney movies have become lately. Movies that are hyped to be something out of the ordinary, something innovative, yet always fail and ultimately default to cheap humor and washed up and overplayed situation.
Content Warning: Rated PG for some scary images and mild innuendo. It’s Disney, so it’s pretty clean.
Popularity: 19%
I really enjoyed Enchanted..it was a refreshing change to see it and it was like a musical and I love musicals!! I agree with your comment on James Marsden. He was good in it and I think Amy was also. I am not a “McDreamy” fan so I am not that into Patrick Dempsey but he does make a likable comedy leading man..