It figures that Disney would find a way to get one more hit from their dried-up well of formulaic princess stories.
Anyone with a little girl at home already knows the premise: the sweet princess Giselle is sent to the “real” world by the evil Queen Narissa who is bent on keeping the throne. Humor ensues because the princess is naive and doesn’t understand why the inhabitants of NYC are cynical, tough and defensive. Eventually Giselle wins over everybody she meets with that optimistic, relentless spirit, namely her rescuer and guide Robert, the divorce lawyer.
It was okay but Enchanted still has Disney splenda in its DNA and like everything else this studio has done for the last 30 years, it just didn’t have enough nerve to skewer the genre properly; can’t do anything “adult,” otherwise sales of Enchanted bedspreads will decline by ten percent. The big musical number in Central Park was impressive but it was as predictable as the ending. I’m more curious about how many drag queens are now modeled after the villainess Narissa after the release.
Griping aside, I am glad I did finally see this. Somara had been recommending it for a while and I failed to catch it in theaters. However, I’m grateful I didn’t gamble on the cineplex experience to sit through the usual mediocrity Hollywood continues to make. Patrick Dempsey starring in it should’ve been a warning. He used to be a mainstay of numerous B-flicks in the Eighties: Loverboy, Run and Can’t Buy me Love.