Cinderella Review

What I liked: The best part by far was the fairy god mother. She was the funnest and most

interesting character presented. It looked like she had fun with the part and she was entertaining to watch. I also liked the transfiguration of the pumpkin, lizards, mice etc. The portrayal of the evil step mother was also excellent though naturally less fun so not as interesting. But I liked her costuming and she was convincingly evil. I also liked that all the colors were so bright through the whole movie, it certainly made it feel more like a fairy land.

What I didn’t: Um, who permitted the step sisters’ outfits. Clearly their mother has much more refined taste so I’m not sure that she was really trying to get them married off to the prince, despite her many exclamations that she was. Possibly she actually wanted them to join the circus, or a tinsle factory, or she had read the story and knew that in the older versions the birds are evil and to be feared-thanks Hitchcock-so she was trying to drive them away with the shiny metal? Also do we need a narrator the entire time? It felt like the old spiderman movies, let me just explain everything for you because we can’t shoot it in a way that you would be able to follow along on your own. Finally, while I know they were trying to get us to like the prince by giving him more screen time we still have the same fundamental problem: they see eachother once and decide to get married. Really you have two options for these stories 1) stick to the love at first sight approach, it’s a fairy tale those kinds of magical things can happen 2) Invest enough time into building a relationship-like in Everafter-that we believe the characters have actually fallen in love. When films try to take a middle road you end up with a love disaster of Hobbit type proportions and we are left thinking “really to be a good king he probably should have married the politically favorable princess” But he ends up with Cinderella because “it was real”

Who should watch this: Kids who love the princess movies.

Would I watch it again? If I want another Cinderella fix I will watch the original animated one or more likely Everafter or the Roger and Hammerstein version.

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