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Many of you know that I am a huge fan of Disney's animated movies. They are fun, fairy-tale-like, mini-musicals for the truly young at heart. With the introduction of Enchanted, the studio tries to do something new with the format.
The movie starts of in the animated world of Andalasia. Princess Giselle is a country maiden on the verge of marrying Prince Edward, the heir apparent to his step-mother, the Queen. Unfortunately, Queen Narissa has concerns about how their budding relationship with lead to her own downfall. The evil stepmother arranges for Giselle to be put out of the way and pushes her down a well.
Giselle is transported to a whole new world and pops out of a manhole cover right in the center of Times Square in Manhattan. Narissa can only hope that Giselle will be crushed by the harsh realities of our world.
Giselle, who is drowning in the hopes and dreams of a fairy tale character, has no easy time when she first arrives in New York City. Fortunately, she runs into a divorce lawyer and his daughter. It is this family that provides her with the first example of kindness in her new world.
Before long she is sharing her view of things, as well as the need to fall into song and dance from time to time, while he points out that she needs to face the reality of the situation.
Meanwhile, a number of other characters from Andalasia arrive to find Giselle. These include Edward, her chipmunk friend, Pip, and an aide to the Queen. This leads to all sorts of romps of adventure and humor as they get chased around the city.
Amy Adams and Idina Menzel (of Wicked fame) share the role of Giselle, with Adams doing most of the acting and Mensel sharing her voice to the songs. Adams does a wonderful job of playing the role of a fairy tale heroine, which seems to work well on illustrated screen, but comes across as awkward and out of place in our real world.
Patrick Dempsey takes on the role of the lawyer who had given up hopes for true love when his wife and the mother of his daughter ran off years earlier.
James Marsden (aka Cyclops in the X-Men movies) takes on the role of the heroic (and quite dim) Prince Edward while Susan Sarandon does a wonderful job with Queen Narissa.
Ray and I sorta disagreed with how good the movie was. I loved it, but he thought it was a little awkward. I think that part of it was that he did not notice all the allusions to various Disney animated movies that are sprinkled throughout the whole move. I thought it was touching and really lived up to the traditional Disney movie. Their is also no shortage of humor for the adults.
