Enchanted

Now we are really getting good for today’s review of “Disney Month,” because we are going to look at a film that is both animated and live-action, “Enchanted,” released in 2007. Roger Ebert admitted in his review, “It's no surprise to me that Amy Adams is enchanting. She won my heart in "Junebug" (2005), where she told her clueless husband: "God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way."”

You might have seen “Junebug,” but I haven’t, but still you will not be surprised by how fresh and winning Amy Adams is in “Enchanted,” where her role completely depends on natural lovability.

In fact, she’s so lovable she starts out this film as an animated princess in a Disney-style world. The birds, flowers, chipmunks and cockroaches actually love her and do her bidding. Listen, if you could utilize the roaches of the world, you’d have quite a work force.

Ebert said, “The princess is named Giselle, she has a beautiful singing voice, and although she resists singing "Someday My Prince Will Come," I think she's always humming it to herself.”

Like all Disney princesses, one day a prince will come for her. In here, it’s Prince Edward (James Marsden), and it is love at first sight, and there are wedding bells in the air before the evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) puts the obstacle on romance by exiling Giselle to someplace as far as possible from this Disney kingdom. She ends up in Times Square. It is obviously very far that the movie changes from animation to live-action, and stays there. However, the animated opening does a good job at setting up the story, so we understand the basic rules of what will obviously be a live-action story playing by the animation rules. Ebert admits, “What results is a heart-winning musical comedy that skips lightly and sprightly from the lily pads of hope to the manhole covers of actuality, if you see what I mean. I'm not sure I do.”

Prince Edward follows her to New York, along with his manservant Nathanial, played by Timothy Spall, and her chipmunk. Now don’t rush ahead and think Giselle and Edward find love in Gotham, because there is trouble of Robert, played by Patrick Dempsey, a handsome single dad Giselle encounters. He’s raising his daughter named Morgan, played by Rachel Covey, and Morgan obviously likes Giselle immediately, when she ends up living with them as a homeless lady from a fairy tale place.

Who doesn’t like Giselle is Nancy, played by Idina Menzel, who already is Robert’s girlfriend. She’s nice enough, but can she take a stand for herself against a Disney princess? Not in a PG-rated movie. So the romance and the adventure continue on in ways that looks familiar enough in an animated comedy, but seem courageous in the real world. We first get the reality animation based on reality (Beowulf) and now reality in animation.

The movie has a sound background in Disney animation, beginning with director Kevin Lima (“Tarzan,” “A Goofy Movie”) and the music is done by Alan Menken and the lyricist is Stephen Schwartz, who did the songs for the soundtracks for “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” More important, it has that Disney effort to allow fantasy into life, so New York seems to be having a new playbook.

For instance, we do know that Manhattan is covered in bugs. Millions of them, in a city where the garbage is left overnight on the sidewalk must seem like an endless buffet. Ebert said, “But when Giselle recruits roaches to help her clean Robert's bathtub -- well, I was going to say, you, you'll never think of roaches the same way again, but actually, you will. I am reminded of "Joe's Apartment" (1996), which used 5,000 real roaches, and of which I wrote: "That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of them were harmed during the production."”

As the roach part is over, and the plotting begins, much helped by Sarandon’s evil queen, who fears the presence of her son Edward marrying the pitiful Giselle. Ebert thinks, “I am not sure Robert and Morgan fully understand from whence Giselle comes, but they respond to the magic in her, and so do we.”

Overall, this is a great movie for little girls to see. I personally like that one part where Giselle tells Robert about Edward and he shockingly asks, “You were going to marry someone you had just met that day!?” It’s funny that they would put that in a Disney movie, since they have always done that, but no one in the movie was ever shocked about it as those who see Disney movies and think that same thing, because you can’t rush in love that quickly. Still, see the movie because it’s really good and you’ll feel nice after the movie is over. Just a heads up: you will see similarities in this movie to "Snow White," "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty."

Look out tomorrow to see what the next review will be in “Disney Month.”