SCI FI PI

Released Dec 26
Starring Amy Adams, James Marsden, Patrick Dempsey, Susan Sarandon
Director Kevin Lima
Rating PG



It’s a live-action Shrek with Disney mocking its own rich history of animated features.

Hard to believe it, but Disney was once famed for a corporate culture so lacking in humour and humanity despite its wholesome image, it was referred to by ex- executives as ‘Mauschwitz’ and spawned the Dinsey-baiting Shrek.

Whilst knowledge of the turnaround in corporate culture is neither here nor there when viewing the end product, it certainly makes this experience a richer one when you see this tremendous self-immolation. What’s really astonishing is it is actually funny. It’s not twee or annoying or just amusing for the kiddies, Enchanted is filled to the brim with often cynical worldly humour that will appeal to the dark-hearted parents and precociously evil children in the theatre. Where Shrek lampooned fairytales, Enchanted actually goes through the Disney back catalogue, to tremendous effect.

The gag is this – the beautiful cartoon-land Giselle (Amy Adams) will soon marry the beautiful cartoon-land prince (James Marsden), but by doing so will remove the evil but beautiful Queen Narissa (Sarandon) from the throne. And we can’t have that, now can we? A bit of hocus pocus and Giselle is thrown into a horrible, strange three dimensional world – the modern savagery that is New York.



It’s awful. None of the cartoon-land rules apply. People are rude and good things don’t just fall out of the sky for no reason. Giselle is marked as a nutcase, tramping around New York in her huge dress. Luckily for her, she bumps into a little girl and her dad (Patrick Dempsey), and then of course, the mush begins, as the insane street lady has to convince the buttoned-down New Yorker the necessity of true love.

But the mush is not too icky. There are some humorous over-the-top musical sequences, and wonderful twists on the ‘beautiful girl has powers over animals’ routine, with a sewerful of rats, cockroaches and pigeons lending a hand when Giselle ‘gives a little whistle’. Her approach to dress-making is also a triumph.

Amy Adams’ bright-eyed zealousness is the key to the film’s victory. Not for a second does she sway from perfect resolve, and it is the fear that emanates from those around her that really creates a ripple of low key, but gut-rumbling laughs.

Adams is in a way the other half of a double act, with James Marsden playing an equally committed (and committable) Prince Edward, which is tough on Patrick Dempsey, who seems a bit lost in the soft edged ‘nice dad’ part, and for his history as Dr McDreamy in Grey’s Anatomy would not rate on the audience’s love-o-meter.



Susan Sarandon does well, although she is at the centre of a deflationary third act that doesn’t quite match up with the flintiness (such as it is) of the majority of the film. Ironically, it is the typical schmalzy Disney ending that doesn’t quite work here. But it’s a blotch rather than a stain, and doesn’t destroy the fine work done up till then.

This is the best Disney children’s film for quite a while.