Ink Blotting - Enchanted

Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Enchanted

James Marsden is delightful and Patrick Dempsey is charming, but Amy Adams is enchanting, which, given the title is something of a requirement. These three actors carry this movie throughout its almost 2 hour duration – a long go for a kid-oriented Disney movie. What starts initially as a wonderfully animated typical Disney movie ends as a wonderfully typical live-action Disney movie. And though the beginning and the end are about as contrived as Disney can make it, it’s what happens throughout the middle of the movie that makes it shine. With a lot of glee Disney pokes fun at their own character stereotypes.

The joy in the movie comes in the cross-over between fantasy and reality, and how, while Amy Adams brings the fantastical to the real, Patrick Dempsey brings the real into the fantastical. Halfway through the movie, with a doting and somewhat dotty Prince Edward (James Marsden) and a dreamy but dreary workaday Robert (Patrick Dempsey) both besotted in their own way with Giselle (Amy Adams), it is unclear exactly how the film would, or should, end. Both men have admirable traits that would see Giselle happily off into happily ever after, and audiences leaving the movie feeling better for having seen it and that, to me, is what made the film. In other recent romantic comedies the plot follows a practiced and practical pace, but I found myself wondering in Enchanted who would end up with who in the end, and realized I was going to be happy with either outcome. It’s a foregone conclusion that everyone ends up happily ever after, some back in the animated realm and some in New York, but for a good 10 minutes it’s really unclear which couple they’ll go with. I think they make a good choice, but then – all of the possible choices would be good choices with these sorts of people.

If I were to complain about the movie, and I could, if I felt like saying unhappy things like this individual, and this individual over at Rottentomatoes (which nevertheless is currently over 90% "freshness") seem to have favored saying, then it would only be to sigh, discontentedly that they decided to turn the movie’s principal musical piece into a montage. And while beautifully orchestrated, filmed, produced and sung – it cut out the reality of coordinating an improvisational musical in Central Park and turned it into a monolithic fantastical (what could only have been a day long) event. I would have preferred longer shots and more consistent framing. Afterall, she’s bringing spontaneous song out of the fantastical and into the real – the least the production team could have done is to at least manage making it LOOK real. By my reckoning the ~5 minute song took place in over 7 locations and would have taken close to 4 hours to perform in their meandering wander about the meaningful and memorable places in Central Park. I don’t know about you, but performing the same song over and over again for 4 hours would have driven me out of my mind – let alone ruined an afternoon’s relaxation on a sunny day in Central Park.

I’ll mention him again, because what review is complete without a link to something he’s had to say about it, but Roger Ebert once again condenses the qualities of the film into something appreciable and palatable, inspiring and invigorating a potential moviegoer into seeing the film.
And one last quibble. What was Michaela Conlin doing in the film? She gets billing on imdb but for the life of me I can’t remember a single line uttered by her in the film. We’d just finished watching Bones, the wife and I, before going to see the movie so it was a surprise to see her in the movie and then to see that she really had nothing to do in it. It makes me wonder how much, and exactly what, they left on the cutting room floor.

3.5 stars out of 4

Kyle Gould is a University of Calgary Graduate in English devoutly trying to make the 25,000 dollar piece of parchment not just a glorified ink blot. Currently it would serve better as a Rorschach test. Feel free to throw some ink his way at wkkgould@hotmail.com.