Enchanted

Well, here goes nothing. Once again. I am coming off of the longest stretch of seeing almost no movies that I can ever remember. In the last four months I have seen a movie in the theaters three times. Never mind that two of those times were spent seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the fourth and fifth times at the dollar theater. We are talking about a monumental change here. I saw a movie every weekend last school year, and probably more than that last summer. Hello California, land of nine dollar matinées and immobile young students. Perhaps it's because of this LONG dry spell that I found the first new movie I saw in the theaters in four months to be pretty grand, but then again perhaps not. This is, as I often promise them to be, a very short review. I loved this movie. That's not to say that it was amazing or anything, but it was very charming and excellently cast. Amy Adams (who is my future wife, I am now convinced) is absolutely perfect in the lead role. She is as beautiful and musical a Disney Princess as we are ever likely to see, and though the temptation was undoubtedly very strong, she never once condescends to playing the role. She believes in the character wholeheartedly and, thanks to her infectious screen presence, so do we. Patrick Dempsey, otherwise known as McDreamy, is pretty good for the role he plays, as is James Marsden who after The Notebook must be getting used to playing the goodhearted, but rejected, suitor. Susan Sarandon is painted up like a cheap streetwalker, but part of that (at least) had to be in the script. The story both follows and politely pokes fun at, Disney princess formula, which is it's strength and toward the end it's only real weakness as a city-top "action-lite" scene becomes just a little too much to take. It doesn't matter at that point, because as the title suggests, we've been thoroughly enchanted and can forgive these Disney monster-makers their cheap and out-of-place little climax. Go see it as a family, go see it as a date movie, if necessary go see it by yourself, but go see it one way or the other. It's too much fun to resist.

B+