Ah yes, one of the Disney "Princess" movies that I love. It's the most true to life Disney Princess story ever made aside from the fact that it has fantasy/fictional parts of course. I already made a review of Enchanted before but this time I will go a bit more into detail for the bitLanders Women Empowerment Film Series Review.

Note: Spoilers ahead.

 

 

(Video credit: Kevin_Lima via Bitlanders)

 

 

♥ The Cast ♥

Here are some of the cast members in Enchanted. 

◙ Amy Adams plays Giselle 

A naive almost-princess cartoon character that got thrown into the real world, in New York City to be exact.

 

◙ Patrick Dempsey plays Robert Philip

A New York dad who found Giselle because of his daughter.  

 

◙ James Marsden as Prince Edward 

 The prince Giselle is supposed to marry in the cartoon world kingdom of Andalasia.

 

◙ Susan Sarandon as Queen Narissa 

The evil queen stepmother of Prince Edward who disguised herself as an old woman to dupe Giselle. She also has magical powers. 

 

◙ Timothy Spall as Nathaniel 

The loyal servant of Queen Nerissa who is in love with her.

 

 

 

♥ The Trailer ♥

(Video credit: Kevin_Lima via Bitlanders)

 

 

 

♥ Synopsis ♥

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Andalasia, there was an evil queen named Nerissa who prevented her stepson Prince Edward from ever meeting a fair maiden who can take the crown from her. But one fateful day, the prince heard a beautiful voice while out capturing trolls in the forest. The queen's henchman, and the prince's assistant, Nathaniel tried to prevent them from meeting. The prince saves Giselle from the captured but released troll and they fall in love. They decide to get married the next day.

When Giselle gets to the castle, Queen Nerissa foils their arrangement by intercepting the would-be bride. The disguised queen drags her to a fountain and pushes her into it sending Giselle to a place where "there's no happily ever after." 

As Giselle falls, she ends up being surrounded by bright lights. Next thing we know, we see her beside a manhole. As she comes out of it she sees a strange new world: New York City. 

(Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: 1080Trailers via YouTube)

 

As she tries to find her way back to the castle, she experiences how the people in New York are cruel because they don't treat her nicely at all.

Meanwhile on the way home, Robert and her young daughter Morgan encounters a wet Giselle knocking on a castle billboard display. Because it was raining and at the insistence of the child, Giselle was able to stay the night and several other nights at their home.

On the other side of the world, the chipmunk friend of Giselle tells the prince of what happened. They both go to where Giselle has gone. Nathaniel follows and soon they go in search of the bride to be.

Unaware the prince is indeed coming, Robert insisted Giselle's prince will not come for her. He knows this because he is a divorce lawyer. As they argue Giselle becomes angry for the first time. But then she suddenly develops a fascination for Robert. This is where both begin to fall for each other even if Robert already has a girlfriend.

(Photo credit: Monamay.com)

 

Eventually Prince Edward finds Giselle almost the same way he finds her in Andalasia. He hears her lovely singing voice in the park. There are a lot of obstacles before they get to meet though. Nathaniel is also in New York to prevent the prince and Giselle from seeing each other. He fails miserably. By the time Prince Edward finally meets her again she has already fallen for Robert and the feeling is mutual. 

Before the prince and the princess-to-be leaves for the kingdom they go to a Kings & Queens ball first. We see Robert and Nancy dancing happily but when Giselle and the prince arrives Robert and Giselle only has eyes for each other. Add to that, the host asks that everyone dance at the ball with someone other than the person they went to the ball with. 

While Giselle and Robert dance they seem to realize that their love may never be because they are both committed to other people. Next thing we know the Queen has arrived and disguises herself as an old hag again. This time she gives Giselle a poisoned apple. She eats of it and faints but the prince almost catches the queen and her evil deed. Nathaniel comes out of nowhere and tells the prince it is her doing. 

(Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: PeterPan&NeverlandForever via YouTube)

 

In order to save Giselle from death, Robert remembered only a true love's kiss can save her. The prince kisses her but to no avail. The queen almost rejoices but then the prince looks to Robert who didn't want to do it until Nancy made him kiss Giselle. They hold their breath in suspense as the clock struck 12 midnight. When she suddenly came to life everyone rejoiced! In anger the queen transformed into her dragon self.

To cut the long story short, they defeated the evil queen, the prince ends up with Nancy and Giselle ends up with Robert. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.

(Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: PeterPan&NeverlandForever via YouTube)

 

 

 

♥ ArtGirl's Review ♥

When I first watched this I really really liked it. Well I still like it but I have not watched it again. I'm doing this review based on my memory of the time I saw Enchanted.  Of course I also watched some of the movie clips on YouTube to finish writing this. Haha. Anyway let's get on with my review.

 

 

◙ Characters & Story

If you've watched the trailer I'm sure you will see how intriguing the story is. This is what made me watch the movie in the first place. Lol. Such a curious premise that I just had to know how they pulled it off. And as we can see, it is now one of the popular movies.

It's not the first time we see a movie with animated characters coming to life but it definitely is unique because this is a Disney movie. Disney movies are known for their Disney princesses and their love stories. I don't really look into the prince-saving-the-princess "issue" but of course the modern ones like Mulan and Merida don't really need much rescuing anymore.

This time Enchanted is a parody of Disney's own Princess movies. In this animated and live action film, they brought to life a "what if" scenario in many people's minds.

What if fairy tales come to life in the real world? Could such a thing ever happen?  Will there be a happily ever after if it did?

Well apparently it did happen in the movie. True love seemed real enough that the simplicity of the cartoon life fairy tale fades and becomes almost too real before our very eyes.

The characters are mostly well developed enough that even adults will appreciate the story. Yes it does have comedic, musical and fantasy scenes for kids and kids at heart yet the story is still heartwarming and endearing. I'm sure we bitter adults can relate to Robert more. Lol. If you are jaded or have been broken hearted, Enchanted will make you believe in love again. It can give you hope that maybe it can happen to you too. (Think positive! Haha.)

(Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: PeterPan&NeverlandForever via YouTube)

 

So perhaps I can say, Enchanted is a Disney Princess movie for adults even if it had a few corny parts. It can also be a good movie for empowering young girls. It lets them know that love doesn't just come as a one time big time thing. Romantic love is not just simply seeing someone and liking them instantly. It shows us emotions can change and we can decide better on who to love especially if we know more about the person, find someone who can broaden our horizons and make us grow, etc. But of course it also shows them more about adult relationships, things like commitment and how a man should treat a woman, etc.

On another note, cynical adult women need to watch feel good romantic Disney movies like this too. It can make us go back in time to when we were innocent and naive to the ways of the world. Those times when we were still trusting of others and were happy and hoped for the best in everything. 

In the movie, you can really see how much of a downer cynics are. Here you are feeling all good and positive something and anything amazing will happen soon and then somebody rains on your parade. Oh my. Yes we all have to be practical but at least we should still learn to be positive and strive to support others to be successful in whatever we dream of doing. After all if your intentions are as pure as Giselle's then what can go wrong, right?

So for me, what can count as women empowerment in Enchanted is the fact that it shows us women can do things other people think cannot or should not be done. If we believe it will happen, we and other people can make it happen. We women have to learn to be undeterred because we can do various things according to our skills and talents! In real life, we may not be able to ask the animals to help us clean the house but we can definitely take steps in making our dreams come true.

(Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: Hebrew_Disney_vids_in_HD via YouTube)

 

But of course not all women are the same. Generally women should be given love, encouragement and support by people around them in order to strive to make the world a better place. Otherwise women can become power hungry like Queen Nerissa. Or maybe she's just misguided and bitter too, who knows. We have no idea of her backstory.

 (Screencap by ArtGirl, credit: PeterPan&NeverlandForever via YouTube)

 

It is very hard to be successful if people around you always shoot your efforts, talents and ideas down. Like Nathaniel who is always treated harshly by Queen Nerissa, eventually we will realize that we need to change and stop letting ourselves be treated badly or else. If we cannot find and get support and encouragement from those around us, it's time to find new friends/colleagues in a similar or better mindset than us and/or be our own support system.

People's trust in us can also be empowering. If strangers and other people close to us trust us then we can forge ahead to do great things. Their trust can make us confident in ourselves. This is what eventually happened to Robert  and Giselle as he learned to be trusting of others again. Even if we see it's mainly only Giselle in particular at least the change in his mindset allowed for their happier and better personalities to shine through. This can definitely happen in real life, not only in movies. 

The movie ends with everybody happy so what's not to love about the story? Oh and guess what, there's already a sequel in the works! Hurray! Who's excited too!? 

 

◙ Acting, Dancing and Singing

I love how this movie is more of a musical with song and dance numbers rather than just a plain movie. The production numbers are not boring at all. Everything was fun to watch. Seeing it makes you want to get up and dance instead! At least for me that's what I felt when I watched those scenes. Haha.

Also, who knew James Marsden could sing? I didn't, until I watched this movie of course. I think he did a good job in Enchanted. Of course a prince should know how to sing and dance well too right? He's such a prince in this film, all confidence and bravado but still very much a gentleman. His character may have been misguided but he is still a handsome and brave prince.

As far as acting goes, Amy Adams did a very good job at being as innocent as a child. Lol. Sometimes she's just so cute and naive as Giselle that people can't help but like her. Aside from acting, the actors/actresses also got the chance to show us their singing prowess. Idina Menzel is of course no stranger to it but most of the songs here are sung by Amy. Her voice is very nice and just adorable like other Disney princesses. Even some of her songs sound like a homage to previous Disney princess songs. Lol.

Even Patrick Dempsey's character is the perfect cynical "prince" to Giselle's princess-like personality. We all know he's charming and handsome to a T so definitely he's a very princely actor indeed. Of course James Marsden and Susan Sarandon were perfectly cast as well. They all fit the roles marvelously. It's refreshing to see them play their characters.

However, somehow Susan as Queen Nerissa wasn't too evil for me but I like how she looked. Haha.

(Screencapped by ArtGirl, credit: PeterPan&NeverlandForever via YouTube)

 

 

◙ Animation, Cinematography, Production Design & Music

Susan Sarandon looked good as the villain. I adore all the props in this movie especially how they made the dragon Nerissa appear. Surely everything was a real piece of work to create. All those detail in design takes time to conceptualize and eventually make.  Kudos to everyone who worked on this movie. It all looks amazing to me. 

From the costume to the backgrounds and set design to the animation, I just love how they did everything. Also, transforming what's animated into real life things take skills. Think cosplay and voila! Kudos to the people who made the animation clothes come to life! I mean, look at this wedding dress. The lighting doesn't do justice to it but it looks great on screen.

(Photo credit: Shoshanah via Wikipedia)

 

Of course not everything is perfect. The dragon form of Queen Nerissa is cute and not enough to scare people off in my opinion. If it weren't dangerous I don't think people would be running away from it.

Anyway watch this video too. Who wouldn't love everything about it? From set design to the music and dance choreography, oh wow. 

(Video credit: Lise LS_Disney via YouTube)

 

The fact that this movie is also partly a musical is what I enjoy most about it. Nothing can top Prince of Egypt for me in terms of songs and soundtrack but Enchanted comes close as one of my favorite movie musicals.

 

 

◙ Rating

My previous rating of this movie was based on how I like it. This time I will rate it based on the three categories I expounded above. 

• Characters & Story: 9
• Acting, Dancing and Singing: 9
• Animation, Cinematography, Production Design & Music: 10

Overall I give this movie a rating of 9.33 stars out of 10. It's not perfect but I still love it.

 

 

 

For my other movie reviews and related blogs, click below:

• Arrival: What Happens When You Decode An Extraterrestrial Language
• Frozen: A Disney Animated Movie Others Love and Enjoy
• Jupiter Ascending: A Lukewarm Sci-Fi Intergalactic Love Story
• This 2010 Movie Kicks Ass!!! Twice! (2013)
• Along With The Gods: The Two Worlds - A Movie for Spiritual Renewal
• Enchanted & 17 Again: 2 Family Fun Movies!
   

 

 

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Written for Bitlanders by ArtGirl. All rights reserved
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