by Lions Gate
| Average Rating: |
|
| Sales Rank: | 18940 (lower is better) |
| Price Used: | $1.98 |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
| Availability: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| Director: | Paul Bolger |
| Release Date: | 2007-05-01 |
| Label: | Lions Gate |
| UPC: | 031398211839 |
| Binding: | DVD |
| Published By: | Lions Gate |
| ASIN: | B000O58ZHQ |
| Category: | DVD |
Actors and Actresses
Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Description
Once upon a time will n'ever be the same again. Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Jack from the Beanstalk are all about to live happily ever after when the balance between good and evil gets thrown out of whack. It's up to Cinderella - aka Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar) - to save the day by taking on her power-hungry stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver). But this time, Ella will have to do it without her Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton) as she joins forces with an unlikely army of dwarves, faries, and the Wizard's bumbling assistants, Mambo (Andy Dick) and Munk (Wallace Shawn). Your favorite fairy tales are turned upside down in this funny, fast-paced adventure that teaches the lesson that - no matter who you are - you have the power to affect how your story turns out!
Amazon.com
With the success of Shrek, more irreverent animated fairy tales (like Hoodwinked) were inevitable. Unfortunately, the original blockbuster set the bar so high--for characterization, humor, and heart--that other such 'toons are sure to seem redundant. Neither as clever nor as intricately rendered as the tale of the great green ogre, Happily N'Ever After is no exception. That said, small children may find it easier to follow, i.e. no Matrix references. As with the live-action Ella Enchanted, the CGI-animated story revolves around a downtrodden lass named Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Her full name, naturally, is Cinderella. The man of her dreams is pea-brained Prince Humperdink (Patrick Warburton). Little does she know that royal dishwasher Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr., Gellar's real-life husband) has his eye on her. When the Wizard (George Carlin) goes off on a golfing vacation, he leaves bumbling assistants Munk (Wallace Shawn) and Mambo (Andy Dick) in charge. In no time at all, they get into a scuffle, and Ella's evil stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver), swoops in to take control of Fairy Tale Land. Her first order of business: Let the bad guys win. Consequently, Sleeping Beauty continues to doze, the Seven Dwarves wind up in jail, etc. Ella joins forces with Rick to set things right. Along the way, she realizes that the lowly lad has more princely qualities than the actual prince, and Frieda's reign turns out to be shorter than intended. It's not a bad idea, but the movie drags and the tunes are unmemorable. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews
Good idea, poorly executed - Reviewed on 2008-06-29
Fractured fairy tales are clever & fun. Turning the Disney ideal on it's head every once in a while is not just refreshing, but a respite from the contrived and formulaic themes that our kids, and more importantly, us parents, are subjected to so frequently.
Unfortunately, this movie just doesn't deliver in terms of entertainment. Despite the star power enlisted for the voices, the writing for this movie just couldn't hold up to the promise of the DVD cover. The jokes were lame, the dialogue boring, and the characters just unlikable. As an admittedly "easily-amused" moviegoer, I found myself distracted several times. My (at the time) 6 year old was equally unimpressed, repeatedly asking when it was going to be over.
This is the kind of DVD that you can have playing in the background when a bunch of kids come over for a party. Family friendly, generally harmless, but falling far short of entertainment. Fairy tales, fractured or otherwise should keep a child's interest while delivering some allegorical life lesson - a moral, if you will. This movie fails on both accounts.
Like eating a half baked sugar cookie - Reviewed on 2008-05-27
The earnest Freddie Prinze, JR, interrupts the film's introduction to let us know that this would no more be an ordinary fairy tale than Dennis Miller in the broadcast both would make for an ordinary broadcast team. A few credits later we meet the most interesting voice in the film, George Carlin as The Wizard. His hour of recording time used up, he exits the screen after five minutes and we are left with his assistants Mambo and Munk to carry the narration, exposition and comedy. If you are five, Andy Dick and Wallace Shawn as the funniest things in a movie might be a good thing, pushing forty... not so much. As a dog/cat whatsitsupposedtobe and a small yellow hippopotamus the two try to add an over the top edge to generic cartoon characters reading lines that sound as if they were written by a five year old rather than for a five year old.
The two show us the balance of nice and naughty that must be maintained for fairy tales to turn out right and the plot smiles and waves at us. Sure enough Cinderella's villainous stepmother overhears the two and soon the scale is set to naughty.
The rest of the story revolves around Sarah Michelle Gellar stretching her acting abilities to a full monotone as she falls in love with a non-prince, but not a non-Prinze, Jr, and the magician's sidekicks trying to restore order to fairytale land while regurgitating punch lines to jokes that somehow never got setup. To be fair Sigourney Weaver fills out the role of the evil stepmother nicely and that is no mean feat given that she is drawn with a twelve inch waist and forty inch hips and bust. For any males over her waist size, her appearance may be the high point of the film.
In short, the animation is mediocre, the writers have gone back to working as short order cooks, the jokes ain't funny and the heroine is dull, but evil never looked better.
* - See Amazon
Product Page for shipping and pricing details.
Book Subjects
- Animated
- Cartoons & Animation
- Children
- Children's Video
- Children's/Family
- Color
- Computer Animation
- English
- Fairy Tales & Legends
- Family
- Fantasy
- Feature Film Family
- Germany
- Ironic
- Movie
- Parody/Spoof
- Scatological Humor
- USA