In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, I will post a family film review. Who better to deliver in that genre than Disney with their new animated/live action hybrid Enchanted. This movie is very cute and quite good at being both wholesome for the kiddies and tongue-in-cheek for the adults. You need to appreciate a studio being able to poke fun at itself. By using the classic stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, all made famous in their own right by the Mouse House, we are given some big laughs. The acting is very self-referential and broad as far as the fairy tale roles that make the journey into our world's New York City go. Screenwriter Bill Kelly gives the cast some great lines and set pieces to play in, ultimately showing us that the storybooks aren't always right. True love does exist, but not necessarily with the one you first think. The message is good, the songs are good, the animation and acting are good—Disney came through with this one. Along with Meet the Robinsons, Mickey and friends may be turning the ship around into a new renaissance.

We are ushered into the story with some 2D animation of Giselle, a pretty girl looking for her Prince Charming. That man is in fact Prince Edward, recently being led by his stepmother's henchman to battle ogres and partake in adventure to keep his mind off a wife. You see if he marries, Queen Narissa loses her crown and he becomes King. She is having none of that and will cross into evil stepmother/queen/hag territory to trick Giselle into falling through a portal to our world. Now a fish-out-of-water, she must find her way back to her love, that eventually comes looking for her along with her best friend Pip the squirrel and the evil witch's lackey Nathaniel. It is on this path that she runs into divorce lawyer Robert Philip and turns both his and her life upside down.

I love how the fantasy world comes into ours so awkwardly. Giselle's ability to call on all the animals of her meadows allows her to do the same in NY, only the creatures she gets are rats, pigeons, cockroaches, and flies—yet they all do the work anyway—it's priceless. Also, when she breaks into song, all the people on the streets join along and have a blast being part of the huge choreographed numbers. Her innocence is very precious and trying new things always gets her new lawyer friend in trouble, yet helps those in her wake. Patrick Dempsey plays that friend to great effect. He sees what she is doing and can't help but fall for her joyful, inability to see cruelty in the world. Playing the straight man to her craziness leads to wonderful moments of laughter as well as those full of poignancy and compassion, giving the kids in the audience something to think about and lessons to learn.

While Dempsey's evolution as a man is something to appreciate, it is the transplants that shine. Amy Adams and James Marsden play Giselle and Prince Edward respectively. They bring the happy-go-lucky mentality of Andalasia to our disenchanted realm. The over-acting is great and the culture shock fantastic. Adams is gorgeous and has the chops to make the aloofness work, but also change later on into a human being that sees what reality brings. When she tells Edward that she was thinking instead of singing, his reaction really hits home on the vast void between storybook fantasy and the real world. As for Marsden, his childish actions are truly funny; a borderline simpleton, he believes in chivalry and when he is told a suspected villain is really a friend, he just flips a switch and is OK with it. His smile is infectious and his vacant expressions indispensable to the film working on the dual levels it does.

Everything works here to bring a wonderful family-friendly story to life. Complete with its pop-up book bookends, Enchanted is truly magical. I don't know how it could ever have worked as a complete animated work, as I have read it originated as, so thankfully they took the plunge to expand it with live action. Crossing between the two worlds is seamless—2D characters turned into humans or 3D computer generated animals. With many instances ripe for a wrong turn, the filmmakers seem to come to all the right decisions. Working in older Disney yarns and playing each story thread to its effective conclusion leaves us with a tale that could become a classic amongst the ones it appropriates. So, if you are looking for a way to spend a couple hours with the whole family, Enchanted is definitely a great way to go.

I finally saw this film nearly a month after its debut. Because of this, there are oodles of other reviews and many of them encapsulated the plot very well, so I won't even try. Instead, from the standpoint of a middle-aged man, I loved the film. Some of this might also be because I took my teenager with me and since she got such a kick out of the film, I couldn't help but like the film. I thoroughly enjoyed ENCHANTED and am glad I saw it. However, after it was over I thought to myself how would others like the film? After all, I am a real softie and like romantic films--what about teenage boys, guys who only cry at John Wayne flicks or rabid feminists? I seriously doubt these audiences would have appreciated the film nearly as much, say, a group of young girls or people who just love the Disney cartoons it parodies. Still, for the right audience, this is a sweet and magical film that is sure to please.

I loved Enchanted, by all means it isn't perfect, but it is a sweet, fun and charming film, that to me was a huge surprise. The animated sequences were lovely, with bright colourful backgrounds, and the live action ones are beautifully shot. The music, by surprise surprise Alan Menken was surprisingly good, taking inspiration from Disney classics like Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. I particularly loved the production number in the park. The script is fresh and funny, and the actors look as though they are having fun, making the film refreshingly irreverent, if perhaps a little silly. I also thought the performances were excellent, Amy Adams was beautiful and perfectly charming as Princess Giselle,(sounds like something out of a ballet),and James Marsden was actually tolerable here as Edward. Sure, he mayn't be the most likable of all the princes ever, but he was funny at times. Patrick Dempsey was also good as Robert, who Giselle meets in New York, and in some way he falls in love with her. Timothy Spall has his moments as Nathanial, and while I personally wouldn't associate Susan Sarandon with villainous roles, she was great as the villainous Narissa, who banishes Giselle to New York. Though, my favourite character has to be Pip the chipmunk, he was not only sweet but absolutely hilarious. The scene when he tries to tell Edward of Nathanial(and impersonating him),culminating in him swaying about singing the love theme, had my whole family in hysterics. I loved Enchanted with its quirky performances, fast pace and engaging dialogue, though I will say the film in't without a flaw. (yes almost every single film I've seen has at least one)The film's only flaw is that the CGI Dragon finale was slightly overblown. Other than that, a simply delightful film, that kids and adults will enjoy. 9/10 Bethany Cox.