The Magic Riddle
Tags: fantasy

Plot synopsis:
Cindy, short for Cinderella, lives with her widowed stepmother and two stepsisters, Bertha and Ertha. Cindy is forced to do all of the housework and is effectively a servant. The widow hates Cindy because when her late Grandfather died, he hid his will which the widow knows passes all the family inheritance to Cindy. The widow purposely keeps Cindy busy so that she won't find the will, giving the widow time to find it first. The widow is also planning to marry her favorite daughter, Bertha, to a handsome young man named Phillipe, though he is smitten with Cindy.
One night, Cindy falls asleep before finishing her chores, but an old lady sneaks into the house to finish the chores for her. Ertha, Cindy's kinder stepsister, encounters the old lady, who reveals that she is Cindy's Grandmother, and was kicked out of the house by the widow after Grandfather died. The same thing happens the following night, but the widow wakes up and chases Grandmother away. Ertha, who witnessed everything, tells Cindy about it.
The widow is afraid that Grandmother will help Cindy find the will. Following the advice of her magic mirror, the widow puts on a salesman disguise and visits Grandmother in the woods, tricking her into entering The Castle of a Hundred Doors, from which there is no escape. Cindy, dressed in a red riding hood, arrives at Grandmother's cottage too late and is chased away by a "wolf", which is actually the widow in disguise.
Cindy sits by a lake, telling her hopes to an ugly duckling, unaware that Phillippe is listening. Phillippe reveals himself and gives her a ring as a token, but their meeting is interrupted by the widow, who orders Cindy to work. While in the barn, Cindy discovers the widow's wolf costume and realizes what happened. Bertha, who is jealous of Cindy, chases the pigs away from the farm and blames Cindy for it. Ertha advises Cindy to escape to Grandmother's cottage, which she does. There Cindy discovers seven wooden dwarfs and one wooden puppet Pinocchio. They come alive when she kisses them, and they tell her that widow took Grandmother away.
The widow wants Cindy back at the house working for her. She discovers Cindy's music box and decides to lure her back by holding a masked ball. Cindy wants to go, as it is a chance to see Phillippe. The dwarfs make her a costume, but warn her that since her mask is made of snow it will melt at midnight. At the ball, Cindy's disguise works and she gets to dance with Phillippe. Meanwhile, Ertha and Pinocchio dance together. When the clock strikes twelve, Cindy's disguise melts and she runs away to escape the widow, her friends following close behind.
When the widow mocks Ertha for falling for Pinocchio, Ertha retaliates by telling Phillippe that Cindy can be found at Grandmother's house. He heads out to find her, but finds the Castle of a Hundred Doors instead. The dwarfs also find the Castle, but they too get lost inside and unable to escape.
The widow goes to the cottage wearing another disguise devised by her magic mirror, this time pretending to be Pinocchio's mother. The widow hypnotises Cindy with a magic apple to fall asleep, and in the commotion the widow accidentally falls into a well. Pinocchio, now alone, searches for help and stumbles upon the Castle. When he enters, one of his shoes is caught on a nail and starts to unravel. Eventually Grandmother is found, and everyone groups up and follows the trail out.
When they arrive back at the cottage, Cindy is woken up by a kiss from Phillippe. Grandmother explains to Cindy about the will, and that the answer is in his Magic Riddle, a poem which ends with: "Only Pinocchio knows". It turns out that the will is inside Pinocchio's nose. Grandmother reads the will, confirming that all of Grandfather's possessions go to Cindy. Cindy and Phillippe's wedding is held at what used to be the widow's house. After the celebrations, the dwarfs and Pinocchio turn back into wood, their task completed. But when Ertha kisses Pinocchio, he comes back to life to be with her.

Review: A less than magical fairy tale hodge-podge. Let's just get this off the bat. Love animation, some are among my favourite films ever. Love fairy tales and have done since childhood. Loved the idea of mixing fairy tale characters together. Love musicals, always have done despite it being a maligned genre on IMDb.So part of me really wanted 'The Magic Riddle' to be good, with all that being considered. Wanted it to be one of those underseen, underrated gems that were easy to defend. Sadly, 'The Magic Riddle' didn't do it for me, didn't care for it much as a child and care for it even less through adult eyes. Just for the record, this is coming from somebody who has been known to defend poorly received films, animated or not while understanding why most would find fault with them, and have gone against the grain more than once, though usually critics and me are on similar pages.'The Magic Riddle' is not a terrible film, it just isn't a particularly good one either. Loved the idea of mixing fairy tales/popular stories and their characters (who doesn't), but it is not exactly a fresh idea and has been done far better with much more wit, charm and magic in Sondheim's 'Into the Woods' and the 'Shrek' films.A few things in 'The Magic Riddle's' favour. There are a few good songs, the beautiful, tear-jerking "Ordinary Miracles" and Cindy's song to the ugly duckling faring the best.Cindy is a very likable protagonist, the best animated character (which is saying a lot) and the most interesting.The ugly duckling is adorable and the grandmother is endearingly befuddled and luckily doesn't over-explain all that goes on.However, while marginally more polished than some of Yoram Gross' other work the animation is too often rather ugly to look at, constantly looking like it was made in haste with the character designs and very flatly coloured. Only with Cindy and some nicely detailed backgrounds does it become above serviceable."Ordinary Miracles" and Cindy's song to the ugly duckling aside, as well as a suitably whimsical and sometimes atmospheric incidental score, the rest of the songs are filled with cheese, basic rhymes and are either forgettable but also derivative. This is including one of the most blatantly obvious and poorly written villain songs in all animation.Cindy aside, the characters don't really engage. Phillippe has very little personality, Pinocchio is very annoying and the villain, generically named as The Widow, couldn't be less menacing or hideously animated if she tried. The other fairy tale characters are fun to spot but feel underused.Parts of the writing are funny, too much of it is cheesy and chaotic and highly suggestive due to the inconsistent and muddled nature of more than one writer being involved. The story is confusingly messy and feels very over-stretched, complete with plot strands that either feel underdeveloped or pointless.While one admires that only two or three people were involved with the voice acting, it is a very mixed bag, Cindy is good but other voices really don't fit the characters or grate, especially Pinocchio.All in all, less than magical and didn't do much for me. 4/10 Bethany Cox. A beautiful non-Disney film that just leaves you breathless. I really love most Disney movies, but this one has to be the only non-Disney fairy tale (or really fairy tales) that I know of next to Don Bluth's "Thumbelina". This movie as actually made up of several fairy tales put together. The main one is "Cinderella" (the main character's name is even Cindy), but it also has "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Pinnochio" (as one of the seven dwarfs), "Little Red Riding Hood" and other fairy tales put into it. Yoram Gross has done some amazing movies like the "Dot" movies, but I say that this one by far is the best he's ever done. All the songs the characters sing are funny and sweet and the song that it plays during the end credits, "Ordinary Miracles Around Me" just makes me want to go into the water-works- it's that beautiful of a song! I extremely strongly suggest that every one should watch this movie if they haven't seen it (adults will also find it a crack up). This movie is one of my most beloved childhood movies; I have so many good memories of this movie and I plan to make more.YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE A.S.A.P!!!