Didn't really work for me

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 2007)

The first 20 minutes or so of this are fantastic. It's a cartoon where Gisella meets handsome Prince Edward and wants to marry him. However, his evil mother Queen Narissa doesn't want her to become queen. So she sends Gisella to the real world (New York City). She is followed by Prince Edward, a spy named Nathaniel and Pip--a chipmunk. Will Edward find Gisella there? The idea is a good one and this has a lot of things going for it: the opening cartoon is wonderful--it's like a whole Disney film running at top speeds and going WAY over the top in an amusing way. Amy Adams is just wonderful as Gisella. She doesn't overplay her character's naivety too much and avoids becoming too goody-goody. Also Pip is a CGI animated chipmunk here and he's just hysterical. His facial expressions and body movements had me laughing. Also the movie looks great--tons of bright color and great special effects. But that's it for the good things.
The bad: James Marsden overplays Prince Edward to a degree that it becomes annoying. Susan Saradon is badly underused as Queen Narissa (her role is little more than a glorified cameo). Patrick Dempsey looks miserable (and acts it). But, most of all, the story has leaps of logic that are just impossible to ignore. There are so many of them that I don't have enough space to list them. A few: how does Gisella get on a subway-with no money? Why is Nathaniel in a kitchen to contact Narissa? Where does he get the various costumes and disguises he wears? How does Gisella get back into Robert's apartment after she left? That's just a few of the problems.
So I really wanted to like this but the story inconsistencies kept annoying me. I might be being too cynical about this so use your own judgment. Kids will probably love it but, be warned, there is a somewhat scary sequence at the end.