Well, that's not gonna last.

Rating: 3/10 (16 February 2009)

It's official: I may not have a heart. All the way through 'Enchanted,' a movie I really wanted to like, I just found myself, perhaps heartless, thinking it was just "okay." Actually the other thought occurred to me that the movie, itself, lacks heart at times.
A great concept of a film, though not entirely original (I did like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' oodles more) the movie starts off summing up multiple fairy tales (namely, of course, Disney cartoons) and then, as the movie promotes, shifts into the real world. One by one, every "named" character goes into New York City and then the movie lets the LEARNING begin!
Unfortunately, I liked the characters in cartoonland, or Andalasia, just the way they were originally. That's their life. They're happy, they thrive, let them be. I realize the movie follows the typical American attitude: "you need to change to our lifestyle, you need to be just like us, or you simply won't be happy until you're just as miserable as we are." And regrettably, that is one of this movie's messages.
I realize I'm the one being a cynic here, but I always have felt, if you're happy and as long as it harms no other, live and let live. What was wrong with Giselle (Amy Adams) singing, loving, dancing and generally being happy with life? Why did she have to meet the Anti-Giselle, Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and why does America, er, I mean, Robert have to drag her down to his level? Funny, he's so pessimistic throughout about true love, happily ever after, that when they (PREDICTABLY) get together "for good," all I could say is, "Well, that's not gonna last."
I know we're not dealing with realism here, and I went as far as to give Giselle the benefit of the doubt and thought it was plausible for her to call upon the creatures to help her clean in the real world. But, what I couldn't get past was the song/dance Central Park number. Did she control them as well? Did she feed them their lines, telepathically? Yes, I understand the art of musicals, especially Disney's musicals, but they tried so hard to make sure we know this is the real world, I figured that's the direction the movie was going. If they just wanted to make her Mary Poppins, so be it. I wouldn't have blinked when she called upon the animals or the Prince that seems to have money coming out of his pockets to suddenly buy food at will or stay in a hotel. But, that's not the direction the movie seemed to be going. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty; this isn't a fairy tale anymore."
Okay, I'm not totally without a heart. There were a lot of scenes I really enjoyed, including Disney actually and for once, mocking its own creations, stockpiling on the advertisements and duplicating a lot of the scenes of the Disney movies we've grown up to love. I also liked some of the songs, always adore the wonderful Susan Sarandon, I loved the heart Giselle had (until she became American) and I actually did like the little chipmunk, Pip, especially how his voice vanished once in NYC. In addition, I liked the whole concept of the film, bringing the clichéd Disney cutouts to the real world and how they would really react. And despite the sometimes mixed messages, it might be pure enough for the kids, aside from the somewhat violent ending (typical closing of a Disney cartoon, but this was real life.)
Speaking of the finale, the movie was already longer than it needed to be, but they seemed to wrap up everything fairly quickly. I wasn't too pleased with how everything went down, including all the humans suddenly accepting everything, including one character literally jumping into Andalasia without a slight thought, changing that person's character in a heartbeat. I guess they had to just wrap it up afraid kids might not stay with the story for two hours.
Uh, 'Harry Potter' is over two hours and kids are on the edges of their seats every minute. Hey Disney, if you have a good enough product, you won't lose your target audience. Just have a little faith. And a little heart.