A Strange Fantasy

Rating: 7/10 (20 September 2008)

I watch movies to escape the real world. This movie is silly, but lets you forget the real world for a little while. It starts off as a saccharine sweet cartoon, then morphs into a live action animation musical comedy-drama. A genre only Disney/Pixar can manage to create.
Because of an evil scheme by a Disney stepmother (who else?), Amy Adams as Princess Giselle gets stuck in the company of mean New Yorkers, save a kind-hearted divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey - the former teen star that got better looking as he got older). Giselle speaks likes the cartoon character even in modern day New York, and New Yorkers believe she's just another crazy woman from the street. Both Disney Prince and Princess end up in New York, looking for each other while maintaining their cartoonish attributes. I know it's Disney and aimed at kids and family, but that was a little too unbelievable.
The minute Adams' Giselle, became an angry New Yorker, because of Robert's (Dempsey) pessimistic view of love and life as a divorce lawyer, the story became more interesting and more watchable. I guess I can't relate to cartoon characters as much. Still the fun part was not watching the special effects, it was great seeing Susan Sarandon as the evil stepmother, Narissa. That's acting and she should have had a larger role in the movie. Not the best Disney movie, that belongs to Beauty & the Beast (IMO), but a fairly good escapism film, that got better as it neared the end.