Show Ella a Enchanted nc an e A Weak ea Meatloaf ea oaf oa of 0 a Movie ovie Allen Johnson Staff Writer Take every single Disney film ever made add a dash of Cinderella a heaping bowl of let it baste with live actors and serve with as little imagination as possible and you have a anice anice anice nice plate of Ella Enchanted This obvious attempt to capture every moneymaking money mak ing kids film from the last fifty years and roll it into one results in an embarrassing embarrassing embarrassing embar embar- rassing failure You spend the duration of the film pointing out what movie this part is from and what character this guy plays in another film as opposed to foIl following owing the predictable story Anne Hathaway stars as asElla asElla asElla Ella who lives in a magical world full of elves giants trolls and of course evil stepmothers and ugly step step- sisters As a baby Ella is blessed by a rather clumsy fairy godmother Lucinda played embarrassingly by Vivica A. A Fox with the gift of perfect obedience Ella grows up a slave to her gift being forced against her will to do whatever people bid her to do Her mother passes away and her father remarries a conniving conniving conniving con con- witch of a woman with two bratty daughters The two evil stepsisters discover Ellas Ella's unusual obedience even to do things she doesn't want to do The two exploit her weakness for their amuse amuse- ment They make Ella steal lie and even tell her best friend Areida played by Parminder K one of the most talented actors in inthe inthe inthe the cast that she never wants to see her again Of course there is the handsome young Prince Charmont a worthy sleep-worthy performance by Hugh Dancy who has every single single single sin sin- gle girl in the kingdom worshiping the ground he walks on on all all except Ella who is above such things Ella sets out to find her fairy godmother to beg her herto herto herto to take back the cursed blessing and in the course of her journey runs into the Prince who falls faIls for her immediately The Prince and the rest of the kingdom are being controlled by the evil Prince Regent Edgar and his pet conspirator Heston Heston-a Heston a snake The pair is a dead ringer for Prince John and Hiss from Disney's Robin RobinHood RobinHood RobinHood Hood Edgar has recently made many changes in the kingdom which have reduced the giants to slaves driven the ogres into the wild and deemed the elves can only get jobs as singers dancers or other entertainers Ella is obviously opposed to this PC non-PC behavior and feels no reserves about telling the young Prince Charmont exactly how she feels The two with a few other companions travel to help Ella bring ring equal rights back to the kingdom and stop a vicious plot on Charmont's life As mentioned before the entire film is very cut cut and paste in the way it rips scenes and characters from other stories did that but it was done with originality and wit wit two two things missing entirely from this film Ella randomly launches into complex Matrix like kung-fu kung moves when attacked for virtually no reason There is a song and dance sequence at the end with moves absolutely identical to the ones at the end of There is a single enjoyable enjoyable enjoy enjoy- enjoyable able moment where Ella Ella is asked to sing for some giants she meets on her journey She breaks out in ina a version of Queens Queen's Somebody To Love That was quite unexpected and was also pretty funny to see three guys guys in in drag queens- queens get it singing the chorus It was an obvious replay of the many recognizable recognizable recognizable songs in though Its It's one thin thing thin to pay homage to films and another thing to mimic films but this is just a very weak carbon copy It is line drawing that comes out feeling muddled and forced The kids will enjoy it because they enjoy every every- thin thing regardless of the quality but for anyone over the a ae age e of 11 its it's most likely likely likely like like- ly going to be a chore 4 1 4 10 0 I. I I rs f r 4 r r rr d r r fi fik fiti k j ti A 1 o r 1 A 1 8 I E J w 3 0 i a t Anne Hathaway Ella sandwiched between friends Aidan McArdle the Elan Ogre and fate |