Enchanted (2007)

Amy Adams shines in this deeply cynical and surprisingly popular take on both Disney’s animated films and male/female relationships in general. While I will readily acknowledge that this is technically a very well made movie, with a great premise, I have to admit that I pretty much hate this movie.

Amy Adams plays a caricature of a Disney princess, which mixes and amplifies elements from Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty resulting in a grotesquely naive damsel in distress who, thanks to her stereotypical wicked step mother (who’s also a witch), winds up roaming the streets of contemporary, “real-life” New York City where there are no happy endings and everyone is a cruel and hateful prick. Indeed, the underlying message we’re supposed to embrace is that secretly, at root, all people are vicious, bitter, and irreparably self-interested....even the sweetest of Disney princesses. This, I think, is supposed to liberate us, as it does Amy Adam’s princess character, but it should also leave us feeling empty to think that all human relations are doomed to die at the hands of self-interested passion.

The first half is a hilarious fish-out-of-water story wherein we get to see a Disney princess struggle with the “real-world” and how the “real-world” struggles to make sense of a person who would ACT so kind, so gentle, so servile, or so sickeningly pure. The musical Disney parodies by Menken are probably his best work going solo for Disney (he’s only been good when he was making fun of the genre, which is telling). In the end, however, when the joke is finally over and the songs have all been sung, we’re left with a cliche, drawn out, and predictable confrontation with a CGI dragon and the dark, poorly defended, wholly unreal, and deeply bitter message about the nature of humanity and the power of love in the world.

In short, it’s a funny movie if you hate Disney movies, or people, or life in general. It’s complete bullshit as far as I am concerned.

I give it 2.8 out of 5 bitter, Manhattan dwelling princesses.