"Knight Thoughts" - exclusive web content
Disney subtly strikes back at Dreamworks with its own modern day spin on the fairytale with pretty good results
Fairytales Can Come True:
Enchanted
11-23-07 "Knight Thoughts" web exclusive review
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Six years after Dreamworks struck it rich by parodying Disney’s patented sugar sweet animated films with their cynical kid Shrek
series Disney has finally lobbed back a response.  It’s a retort, alright – but a subtle, gentle one.  In typical Disney fashion
Enchanted, though it co-opts the Shrek pictures and its equally cynical imitators, not only retains the gentle innocence of its animated,
classical roots, it reaffirms them.  The result is not the triumph
Enchanted purports to be but it has enough freshness (thanks
especially to its lead performers) mixed with just the right amount of knowingness to overcome its razor thin script and allow Disney
to say, “So there Dreamworks, so there Mr. Katzenberg, we’re hip, funny and smart too – but we’re still sweet.”

The movie begins in the timeless animated Disney style of everything from
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Beauty and the Beast.  
Giselle, a princess to be (Amy Adams) sings while she works, calling on all her woodland and feathered friends to help but naturally
Narissa, a wicked queen (Susan Sarandon) is determined to get rid of her – as she knows that the moment Edward, her Prince
Charming of a son (James Marsden) gets a look at princess’ great big eyes, her reign will be over.  But too late, Edward gets a
gander at Giselle and after another hilarious love duet (the expert fairytale parody songs are by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz)
the wedding is at hand.  On the way to the church, however, Narissa tosses Giselle down a well so deep it lands her in Manhattan in
human form.

Giselle, dolled up in her princess finery, stumbles around Times Square, looking for her Edward in tried and true fish out of water
fashion.  This delightful innocent with her impossibly pale skin is eventually discovered by a lonely little girl and her widowed father
(Patrick Dempsey, once again making the leap back to film feature roles after several seasons on series TV and dubbed Dr.
McDreamy) who take pity on the damsel in distress.  The father is a divorce lawyer who is in the midst of settling a particularly nasty
divorce case just as he is about to propose to his girlfriend Nancy (Idina Menzel, “Wicked’s” original Elphaba).  Eventually Prince
Edward, Narissa’s weakling servant (played with relish by Timothy Spall) and she herself will follow Giselle to New York, all the better
to emphasize the culture clash that ensues when the real and the animated converge.  Much of the picture from this point on feels
very familiar – as
Enchanted follows in the footsteps of dozens of fish out of water comedies that have preceded it.  Sprinkled
throughout are fresh comedic moments that help the picture from lagging completely into “haven’t I seen this before?” territory but
they’re not mean spirited or in the moment references that have dated the
Shrek pictures (and will give Enchanted a longer shelf life).

Though Sarandon is basically wasted and Spall could have done wonders with a few more comedic scenes, Adams and especially
Marsden bring real sweetness and heart to their cardboard characters (and both are certainly perfect human embodiments of their
roles and sing with relish).  Dempsey and Menzel (who, to be kind, is not movie star material), both a bit, well, used looking are not
exactly the pair you’d want these two to end up with but by the end of
Enchanted, the picture has sprinkled enough pixie dust into the
cynical batter so that one doesn’t really mind.