Enchanted gently pokes fun at, relives good ol' days of Disney animation

***1/2


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Takes a strong movie buff of a grown man to walk up to a ticket counter and say, "one for Enchanted, please." But that's what I did and I'm glad I went. What a fun way to spend an afternoon, watching Amy Adams embody all the great animated princesses of Disney lore, in real-life Manhattan.
Very few modern actresses could pull off the kind of fresh-faced innocence that Adams needed for this film, but few have that remarkably old-fashioned, sweet gentle mug to do it with. She's 33, but you wonder if she's ever sipped a beer or even been around second-hand smoke. She's stood out and I've liked her in everything I've seen her in so far (as Leonardo DiCaprio's fiancee in Catch Me If You Can; Jim's cheerleader girlfriend in The Office; and her Oscar-nominated turn as a sad, but adorable pregnant woman in Junebug), but she blows you away as Giselle in Enchanted.
As an animated young woman excitedly waiting for Prince Charming to marry her, she is tricked into leaving the animated world for the cruel harsh life of reality. Once she enters modern day New York City she meets a bitter, but nice divorce lawyer played by Patrick Dempsey. Luckily for Giselle, Dempsey has an adorable 6-year old daughter who is the perfect age to believe in singing princesses and Prince Charmings.
Thankfully, there are few musical numbers, because this movie is basically a spoof of a Disney animated musical and too many songs could kill the joke, but what few there are are great. The song and dance sequence in Central Park is a big highlight. The songs in this film have the kind of zip that made the Disney grand slam of the early '90s so wonderful (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King) and I thought wow, they sound like old Alan Mencken-type songs. They are. Mencken spoofing his early '90s work is pretty cool.
Amy Adams never winks at us once throughout the movie, allowing the character to become as real in an unreal setting as possible, while James Marsden as Prince Charming and Susan Sarandon as his mother the wicked queen have a ball playing their parts. My only problem with the film is that while it is aimed at little girls and fun-loving adults, we are all probably Disney fans and as experienced Disney filmgoers it would have been nice if they had surprised us more along the way. I don't necessarily feel that I've seen this movie before, but I certainly knew how it was going to end and that disappointed me. From about the halfway point onward, I felt like we were playing connect the dots. I mean the Shreks are similar in tone to this movie and I had no idea how those three would end.
All that being said, Amy Adams probably will get and deserves another Oscar nomination for this role. Her star is on the rise.

The Freditor