It's Disney.

Rating: 5/10 (8 December 2013)

First of all, let's discuss the positives of this film, namely the production value. The drawings and the animation are gorgeous, and the music is catchy and perfectly-crafted. It's not for nothing that people speak of "Disney magic," and what else would come to mind but a fairy godmother and a beautiful girl? Disney's Cinderella is certainly a cultural icon.
And that's really unfortunate for our culture. Because, you see, the writers of the script decided to favor the synthesis of the eye candy magic over the essence of the original story. Disney's Cinderella appears to be an unwilling captive in a situation so bad we cannot understand why she does not run away: she IS shown to be of at least moderately illustrious ascendancy and surely she could at least start out in a more worthy setting somewhere else before her masters take note that she's perhaps issue of an education not quite comparable to that of the other scullery maids?
Charles Perrault's Cinderella was rather clearer on this point. Cinderella loved her father and even though his second wife and stepdaughters were cruel to her, she stayed behind to look after them out of love for her father, knowing he wanted his two families to love each other and to meld together. This is made clear at the first ball (in the Disney version, there is only one, and the story is robbed of commensurate death): the prince takes notice of Cinderella and gives her a plateau of oranges and lemons (a rarity in 17th-century France), and she immediately finds her stepsisters and shares the dessert with them. The message is that Cinderella had it all to move up in the world, deep interior beauty as well as outer beauty, and just a little bit of divine intervention (through her fairy godmother) cleaned up and allowed people to look past an otherwise soot-laden exterior. She was noble both in birth and in character and she deserved the royal treatment she ended up getting.
But Disney's Cinderella does... nothing. Not even talk. And she gets the prince's attention. And what, did she just leave her father's second family behind once she got into the palace? Not that they didn't deserve it (they deserved much, much worse, of course!). But the whole meaning of the original is lost. Her stepmother and stepsisters are not seen at the wedding. Disney's Cinderella is just a pretty but ordinary "nice girl" who happens to be of noble birth and possesses little gray matter.
What's the point?? I mean, seriously, this stuff is porno for little girls. Yes, everyone wants to move up, everyone wants to be royal. And I'm NOT a feminist. But this kind of passive corset-stringing is not a good role model. The message is, "Bide your time and be pretty and someone will come to rescue you." What about developing the kind of loving and thoughtful character and self-esteem that will attract a decent man - and touch the lives of others while you're at it?
Overally, really not a constructive addition to the film canon, whatever its technical merits.