My friend and I were psyched. We had our tickets, we had candy, we had a minivan that more than adequately resembled a pumpkin coach, and we were the only people in Brunswick seeing the 9:30 p.m. showing of Ella Enchanted.
For this movie, I had forsaken Jennifer Garner-my official girl crush of 2001-and her 13 Going on 30. I didn't really want to watch her giggle away all of her super-cool Alias persona, and that movie was making enough money already. Why not support the underdog?
I'll tell you why not. In a rare case of box office justice, the underdog has less bite than a bag of gummy bears. Ella Enchanted, based on the novel by Gail Carson Levine, is the Cinderella story of a girl (Anne Hathaway) who is given the "gift" of obedience as an infant by the clueless, hard-drinking fairy Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox). After the wickeder of the wicked stepsisters discovers and exploits Ella's situation for her own cruel amusement, Ella sets out to find Lucinda and ask her to take the gift back. Along the way, she befriends an elf, runs from ogres, and falls for a prince.
I haven't read Levine's novel, but I hear it's a truly witty and even a profound twist on the fairy tale. Ella is all girl-power rebel, and a segregated magical kingdom provides heaps of political allegory. Unfortunately, the film preserves little of this. Rather than being a radical, Ella is just self-righteous and kind of bitchy. Sure, she has a better-than-average concern for social justice, but that becomes back-burner stuff once she hooks up with Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy).
And while Dancy is dreamy enough to make me consider renting some movie called The Sleeping Dictionary, his prince has all the panache of a boiled leek. We're supposed to think that Ella's influence has turned the future king into a benevolent, progressive leader, but the pair's little tiffs over elfin employment restrictions and "ogrecide" are merely preambles for the really important stuff like wearing pretty dresses and making goo-goo eyes at boys. The line that wins Ella over: "Kiss me. [Pause]. That wasn't an order, you know." Screw Gloria Steinem; give me my sin again!
Ella Enchanted has the necessary elements for preserving its cinematic dignity, but it doesn't use them. Both Minnie Driver and Parminder K. Nagra (Bend it Like Beckham) are well-cast but completely neglected talent. Evil Prince Edgar's serpent sidekick Heston (I told you there was allegory) would be funnier if he wasn't just the CGI version of Sir Hiss from the Disney Robin Hood of our childhood. The movie sacrifices the warm fuzzies of the Disney cartoon in favor of wink-wink moments like Heidi Klum as a smitten giant, quips about Medieval Teen magazine, and beauty treatments made from bat and ox blood (Batox(tm), anyone?), none of which really fills the humor void.
The movie's climax-in which Ella has to overcome her gift or obey Edgar's command to kill Charmont-is dazzlingly tense. And director Tommy O'Haver's imaginative anachronisms like wheel-powered, wooden escalators and thatched-roofed Tudor mansions are good visual fun.
Still, post-Ella I felt only mildly entertained, not a little embarrassed, and certainly disenchanted. The film's laborious attempts to fracture this fairy tale could have been tempered by a little more innocent fantasy. If we're only going to serve pre-teen girls half-baked feminism, we'd better serve it alongside singing mice, a lovably frumpy godmother, and-for crying out loud-a simple pumpkin coach.
Rating: 1 Polar Bear (of 4)