Ella Enchanted (2004)

  If I had seen this movie when I was 12 or 13, I think I would have enjoyed it more.  As is, I thought that it was cute and definitely showed the potential star power for Anne Hathaway.

Young Ella (Anne Hathaway) is bright, beautiful, and kind, thanks to her fairy godmother (Minnie Driver).  Unfortunately, her other fairy godmother, Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox), is much less thoughtful and her well-meaning gift of Obedience has become somewhat of a curse.  Ella cannot refuse a direct order from anyone.  She manages to keep it a secret until her step-sister (Lucy Punch) figures it out and uses it to torment her.  Ella decides to track down the errant fairy and demand to have the "gift" removed.  On the way, she meets the heir to the throne, Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), and tries to convince him that his uncle's (Cary Elwes) policies are discriminating unfairly against trolls, elves and giants.

This is based off a Newbury Award-winning book of the same name, but apparently differs considerably from the source.  I should hope so, because the climax is rather silly and trite.  Vivica A. Fox is woefully miscast as the air-headed party girl, Lucinda, and Heidi Klum shows up as a giantess for no apparent reason.  Half the cast has British accents and half don't with Minnie Driver ending up in the wrong half.  There are a couple of musical numbers using classic pop songs that I'm sure were intended to garner recognition as well as be a joke about fairy tale musicals, but instead tells me that no one wanted to hire songwriters to do original works.

On the plus side, Cary Elwes is fantastic as the stereotypically evil Regent.  Hugh Dancy has boyish charm pouring out of his ears which works mostly well with Hathaway.  Lucy Punch has a good supporting turn as the bitchy stepsister, with Joanna Lumley swanning around as her mother.  I wouldn't have minded if that side had a spin-off movie.

So, overall, kind of a mixed bag but I think we can fall on the positive.  It's not a terrible movie to show your children, though you may want to strangle someone if you're forced to watch it more than once a year.