Ella Enchanted

I Absolutely HATED THIS MOVIE!!!!! It was ridiculous, the ending was the STUPIDEST ending I've ever seen. If you loved Ella Enchanted the book I warn you: DO NOT SEE THE MOVIE!!! The only resemblance the movie had to the book was the names, places and the fact that Ella was cursed to always be obiedient. Ella's father IS NICE. Not, mean, lying, or selfish. Mandy is YOUNG AND PRETTY, not old and plump...oh, and she accidentally turned her boyfriend into a book because she actually uses magic, but isn't very good at it. Prince Char had an evil Uncle (who owns a talking snake.....pointless) who killed Char's father. The Ogres are NICE, NOT pursuassive, NOT hairy, and their butts hang out like stereotypical plumbers'. The elves are forced to sing and dance, Slanan wants to be a lawyer...the giants are FORCED to grow crops and Kupoduk (spelling...I have no idea) resembles a mob boss. That's only HALF of it, I'm NOT kidding. Not only was this "movie" entirely disloyal to the book...it wasn't even good...not even remotely. The ONLY thing I will say for this movie is that the actors they chose to portray Char and Ella were perfect (the way they looked anyway) Char was insecure and Ella wasn't nearly as funny and clever as she is in the book.

I highly anticipated this movie's release, as Ella Enchanted has been one of my favorite books since I first read it about 10 years ago. It's a great story, a twist on the Cinderella story that's sweet, funny, interesting, and engaging to both younger readers (as I was when I first read it) and to older ones (I'm in college now, and I still love it). That said, this COULD have been a really fantastic movie--there was a lot of potential. I've seen the movie once, and it was more than enough. I watched it with increasing horror as the original story was ripped to shreds by a producer/director/creative team/WHATEVER who clearly did NOT read the book or even get what the story was supposed to be about. They turned it into some fantasy-feminist-musical disgrace. The whole movie is simply a joke, and to cap it off they have a god-awful song and dance sequence at the end involving Elton John, Kiki Dee, Anne Hathaway in white go-go boots and a miniskirt (singing dreadfully, I might add), and knights and ogres dancing and leaping across the screen. If I read another parent review about this being some fantastic movie, a classic for children, I'll flip. Putting the raping of the book's plot aside, the movie itself wasn't even GOOD. It was horrible and ridiculous.