DVD Review: Enchanted

Writer: Bill Kelly
Director: Kevin Lima
Cast: Julie Andrews, Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Susan Sarandon, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, Jeff Bennett, Kevin Lima
Rating: PG
Studio: Walt Disney
Release Date: March 18, 2008

It doesn’t take very long for you to feel like you’ve stepped into a dream, as you watch the come to life fairytale Enchanted. While the movie could have gone in the wrong direction with weak humor and boring clichés, the cleverly written script by Billy Kelly (Premonition) is surprisingly entertaining. Sure, there are clichés, but Kelly lovingly mocks the predictability of fairy tales and the unlikelihood of happily ever after from the absurdly happy scenes in Andalasia to the harsh, cold streets of New York.

In this witty romantic comedy, you really have to avoid taking the movie too seriously lest you become as daft a minion of Susan Sarandon’s evil Queen. Despite its somewhat mocking nature, Enchanted pays homage to some of the greatest Disney classics ever created including Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. In truth, not everyone is going to love the silly yet heartwarming nature (or at least –admit- they love it) of this movie that personifies all that Disney stands for, and that’s okay. Still, if you’re a fan of Disney movies, romantic comedies, heartwarming tales, and/or Patrick Dempsey, this movie really hits the mark.

Release Information:
Enchanted has received both critical praise and success by both critics and the box office. First and foremost a family movie, the film opened to audiences on November 21, 2007. The film made a three-day combined total (opening day, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday) of just shy of $30 million. This placed the movie in the #1 spot at the box office during its first two weeks in theaters. Since that time, Enchanted has grossed over $323 million worldwide!

Walt Disney is all set to release Enchanted on DVD on March 18, 2008. Available in full frame, widescreen, and Blu Ray editions, all three DVDs will be available on the release date at all major and local retailers. This review focuses on the widescreen edition though the plot is the same no matter what version you purchase. At Amazon, you can pre-order the standard editions (full frame and widescreen) for $14.99 and the Blu-Ray for $23.95 at Amazon.

The Enchanted Plot
Enchanted is the first film to use traditional animation since 2004 (or before then). At that time, the studio decided to go to the computer generated style of design for all of its animation projects. Since Enchanted is paying homage to the classics, it only seems fitting that the animated portions of the film are styled after the classics. This is how the movie starts. In the beginning, we meet the Evil Queen, Narissa (Susan Sarandon). She married the King to take the throne and her stepson, Prince Edward (James Marsden) is her biggest threat because if he is to marry then he will become the King and his new wife will become the Queen, taking the throne away from the power-hungry Narissa. She decides to make sure Edward never meets a maiden worthy of marriage.

Enter Giselle (Amy Adams), a beautiful, red haired maiden living in a quaint little white house in the forest that seems to be built around a large tree. She has had a dream that she will meet her prince. As she sings to her forest friends (who sing, dance and talk with her), they construct a statue of her prince. Just then, Edward overhears Giselle singing since he is out with his Narissa-loyal servant, Nathanial (Timothy Spall), hunting evil trolls. When he hears Giselle singing, he decides he must meet her, much to Nathaniel’s disapproval. The giant troll he’s been hunting decides he’s going to eat Giselle, but at the last minute, Edward saves her. They instantly fall in love and he decides they will be married the next day.

When Nathaniel returns to Narissa’s side (he has a major crush on her) he tells her of the wedding and she realizes she must get rid of Giselle. Disguised as an old woman, she tells Giselle she must make a wish on her wedding day. When she gets to the well, she is thrust into it and sent, as Narissa says, to a land where ‘Happily Ever Afters’ simply don’t exist. This is where Giselle becomes live action as she exits from a manhole in the center of Times Square, nearly getting hit by a car in her first vision of this strange new world she has entered. Luckily, her chipmunk friend, Pip (Jeff Bennett/Kevin Lima), has witnessed Giselle’s disappearance. He knows Nathaniel is involved and it isn’t long before Edward learns his bride to be has been forced to go to New York. He heads there through the well, with Pip. Unfortunately, Pip soon realizes in live action form, he cannot speak so he can’t warn Edward about Nathaniel.

Giselle is wandering around New York when she is spotted by the six year old daughter, Morgan (Rachel), of a lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey). He has decided that he is going to propose to his girlfriend of five years, Nancy (Idina Menzel) and he has bought his daughter a present to soften the blow. Of course, her idea of a present and his (a book of stories about amazing women like Marie Curie) are a little different. As he is trying to tell her about Nancy, Giselle falls into his lap (literally) from the top of a nearby billboard and he ends up taking her to his apartment, to call her a car. She ends up passing out on the couch before he can find out where to send her.

The next morning, Giselle has disrupted Robert’s house quite a bit. She’s used his curtains to make herself a very lovely dress. All of the animals and insects in New York, including the cockroaches and rats, help her straighten up the apartment, though they obviously freak Robert out when he sees them. Giselle also tumbles into him and lands on top of him in just a towel, right at the moment when Nancy walks in the room. After Nancy assumes that the two have been up to some hanky panky and she leaves bitterly, Robert must get Morgan to school and himself to work, where his secretary (aptly played by Jodi Benson who was the voice of Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid) is trying to find a way to get Giselle back to Andalusia. According to the secretary, the place just doesn’t exist.

Upset that Edward has gone after Giselle, Narissa sends Nathaniel off with a poisoned apple. If she bites into it and the clock strikes twelve she will die. Giselle is content in waiting for Edward to come for her, oblivious to the danger that is lurking around every corner. Pip tries to warn Edward as he runs into Nathaniel, but Pip is captured by Nathaniel unable to communicate in any way to let Edward know what is going on.

At the same time, Robert is ready for Giselle to leave. After giving her some cash, he has a change of heart since he believes she is unable to care for herself due to her “delusions”. As the two stroll through Central Park, she speaks about her view of love. It’s happily ever after, marriage is forever, and divorce is an unheard of concept. Robert tells her about dating and explains he’s been with Nancy for 5 years and who knows if a marriage will last forever. As the two are bonding, Edward closes in on finding her and Narissa must go to desperate measures to have her way.

This is a true Disney fairytale. There is some comedy. There is some evil. There is love. There is emotion. The songs, written by the talented Alan Menken and Steven Schwartz, are simply brilliant. The song and dance numbers fit perfectly into the story. This is the kind of movie an entire family can watch and each member of the family will get something from the experience. If the story wasn’t strong enough it wouldn’t have been as good and the acting would have suffered. Presenting the same excitement as a kid in a candy store might have, this movie will delight audiences of all ages.

Speaking of the acting, the actors chosen for each role in Enchanted seems to be perfectly chosen. Relatively unknown newcomer, Amy Adams is beautiful, innocent, enchanting and impeccably well cast as the bright-eyed optimist, Giselle. Her performance was refreshing. Giselle was played as someone who was genuinely sweet without airs. Every little girl dreams of being such a princess. With her beautiful, light red hair, Adams was as dazzling in appearance as she was in performance and singing ability. Speaking of her singing, her voice is warm, rich, and inviting. All around Kevin Lima chose the perfect Giselle.

As for the other characters, who else to chose for a handsome male lead than Dr. McDreamy himself? Patrick Dempsey gives the movie the masculine charm it needs to attract an already swooning female audience. He does this with aplomb, and though his character is a cynic by nature, he does well in the least comedic role in the film. Matching her elder co-stars with grown up grace is the pint sized powerhouse, Rachel Covey. She too seems to be a newcomer, but her comedic timing and adorable nature make her shoe-in to become one of the next great child stars.

While I never pictured James Marsden as the “prince” type, he’s downright hilarious. His humor finally gets the chance to shine through (see him with the statue of liberty hat on with his prince costume for one terrific laugh) in this movie where it seems to be lacking in most of the other work he’s done. He was great though and when teamed up with the creepy Timothy Spall, there really is no better choice for the prince.

Finally, I cannot end this section of my review without praising Susan Sarandon. As the evil Narissa, Sarandon is sinfully evil. She makes the perfect evil stepmother and as she becomes live action you must give props to costume designer Mona May (and the makeup/effects department). Sarandon’s transformation, coupled with her acting, really made the movie, but then again, who could hate a performance by Susan Sarandon? She’s just excellent all around.

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
Enchanted is transferred beautifully at the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This is an anamorphic widescreen transfer and its one of the best transfers I’ve seen by Disney in the past year. The visual quality is free of errors and nearly rivals most of the HD qualities I’ve seen. For a standard DVD, I was highly impressed. The colors are vibrant, the animation is brilliant. Overall, it’s hard to find anything bad to say about Enchanted’s visual quality because it’s absolutely flawless.

Disney provides the option of either English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound or English DTS. Spanish and French tracks are also available in stereo though I can’t comment on their quality since I don’t speak either language. The English tracks are great considering the soundtrack is full of musical numbers. It is a rich, full-bodied track with clear, consistent dialogue. The music is what makes these tracks shine and both of the English tracks take advantage of what sounds there are by providing a brilliant sound that uses all of the speakers to their greatest capabilities. There are subtitles available in English, Spanish and French.

Visual:
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Bonus Features:
Any good Disney feature should be loaded with bonuses. While Enchanted isn’t packed full of extras, what are there hold their own. The featurette section for the DVD is called “Fantasy Come to Life”. In this section, there are three primary featurettes, “Happy Working Song”, “That’s How You Know” and “A Blast from the Ball”. The “Happy Working Song” featurette explores the scene in which Giselle gets the animals to work to clean in the song. In this feature, live rats and pigeons were used and the difficulty in choreographing the scene is explored in less than seven minutes of time.

“That’s How You Know” was a dance number filmed in Central Park. The featurette was aptly named after the song since it explores the production number. This too comes in at under seven minutes in length. The last featurette in this section, “A Blast from the Ball” looks at the ball at the end of the movie and how visual effects were used in the climactic, last few scenes. This feature is right around five minutes in length.

Other bonuses for Enchanted include deleted scenes (with intros from Kevin Lima), bloopers, and “Pip’s Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure”. The last bonus is a child-friendly, pop up style story about Pip the chipmunk. It’s pretty darn cute for a cartoon feature. Overall, the bonuses may not be significant, but what is there seems to be fun. I would have enjoyed some more behind the scenes stuff, but hopefully that will be included in a future, special edition set.

Just to make note, Enchanted has trailers for other movies included in the bonus section. The movies include The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning,” Minute Men, Jungle Book 2: Special Edition, Hannah Montana: One in a Million, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Sleeping Beauty, and Tinker Bell. There is also a nice little feature on why people should spend extra money and get Blu-Ray. I just am curious about how they were able to put Blu-Ray quality on a standard DVD for the Blu-Ray feature, but can’t do it for a regular movie. Inquiring minds want to know!

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
You’ll be as enchanted as I was when you see Disney’s latest hit movie, Enchanted. If you like the older Disney classics, Enchanted is a nice change to the current list of Disney flicks (though I really did enjoy Meet the Robinsons). With humor, romance and one cohesive story, Enchanted has all the elements of a modern day fairytale. This movie is as enjoyable for adults as it is for children. That being said, I highly recommend Enchanted.

Overall Rating:

Technorati Tags: Enchanted, Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Susan Sarandon, Disney Movie, Film Review, Princess, Animated

Written by Dominick Evans – Visit Website
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Dominick is in his late 20s. He lives in Michigan with his life partner, Ashtyn, their 14 year old son Robert, and their Shih-Tzu, Oliver. Dominick is a writer and the head editor for both LI Kids and Literary Illusions. He enjoys composing music and is an aspiring director/screenwriter. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, playing video games, watching movies, and singing.