Enchanted!

Giselle (Amy Adams) is a lovely young maiden living in the magical kingdom of Andalasia. She is waiting for Love's True Kiss to tell her whom she will marry. You can already tell it will likely be a prince, since Giselle can sing to the animals, and get them to do her work for her, a sure sign of incipient princesshood.

And sure enough, she soon falls into the arms of a nearby wandering prince, Prince Edward of Andalasia, (James Marsden). They are to be married the next day.

Which of course does not give Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) much time to act. It seems Prince Edward's step mom enjoys being the Queen Regent, and as long as Edward is unmarried and busy hunting, that is how things will be.

So, disguised as a crone, she lures Giselle to the Wishing Well, and shoves her in, thrusting her through a portal in time and space to a land where happily ever after never happens....New York City.

Andalasia is animated, New York is...well, New York, and Giselle finds herself in a world completely alien to everything she knows.

Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey) is a lawyer. He is sure he has a handle on the way the world works. He has a daughter, Morgan, (Rachel Covey) and a fiancée, Nancy. (Idena Menzel) He is in a complacent little rut. But when Morgan spots Giselle trying to gain entry into a castle painted on a billboard, she bolts from a cab (my kids are better trained) and Giselle falls into their lives.

Giselle is of course, essentially two dimensional. She believes in true love, and forever. Robert is a divorce lawyer. She thinks song and dance can solve most problems. He tries to educate her in the ways of the world. This is slightly hampered by Giselle's power to make people break into large scale song and dance numbers.

There is a great scene where after her first night, Giselle decides to clean up. She belts out a few bars of a song, and the native fauna of New York responds; rats, pigeons and roaches. Singing and dancing vermin....and they do a fabulous job.

Meanwhile, things are not quiet in Andalusia. Pip the chipmunk rats out where Giselle went to Prince Edward, and he is off to save his lady fair. His introduction to modern society goes even more poorly than Giselle's. At least she didn't try to slay a bus.

When Queen Narissa learns Edward has gone after his true love, she sends and agent to make sure no one lives happily after. Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) tries to navigate in the real world, redirecting Edward away from Giselle and trying to kill her with poisoned apples, all the while trying to keep Pip from telling the oblivious and rather self absorbed Edward the truth.

Queen Narissa should have remembered the old adage, if you want something done right..... Eventually, she does.

So, what will constitute happily ever after for all parties concerned?

This movie has some truly delightful parts; Giselle has some mad skills when it comes to dress making. No set of curtains is safe when she is around. (Shades of Scarlet O'Hara) And her ability to inspire spontaneous choreography is a wonderfully whimsical thing. But it is the more real world things that make this movie really great. Giselle expects the best out of life. Life tends to deliver. This is not cartoons; this is the power of purity.

The shopping expedition was great; Morgan as a fairy godmother is a nice twist. And an even better twist waits near the end. The Princess doesn't always have to wait to be saved.

Amy Adams is a delight, giving an animated performance. The pun is there for a reason; it's hard to mimic the conceits of animated characters, but her kinesiology is spot on.

Another stand out performance is Susan Sarandon. It is amazing, but even as she ages, she never looses that spark of sex appeal that made Janet Weiss sing. I am only sad she appeared so late in the movie. When Susan is good, she is very very good, and when she is bad, she is better!

James Marsden as Prince Edward was brilliant. He was perfect; beautiful, vacuous, two dimensional, but with a slightly expanding personality. It is easy to go too far with a two dimensional character, but he kept it from escaping, and going too far over the top. You don't want Giselle to end up with him, but I think it important that he still be sympathetic. There has to be an element of regret there. (If I let James Marsden slip through my fingers, I would regret!)

I wish the same thing could have been said of Timothy Spall. I don't think it is the man's acting, because the man can ACT, but I think Lima directed him to be just a wee bit too frantic.

The special effects were brilliant. The animation was okay...that's all it needed to be, but the real world effects...Wicked. Singing vermin......!

But I think one of the best things about this movie might be completely unintentional. Every child has dreams of living in a world where every thing works out, where problems are simple, and the bad guys wear distinctive costumes and too much eye make up (oops, another RHPS reference). But when Giselle was faced with that choice, she chose life, with all its flaws, with all its disappointments. Because in the end, real life is more rewarding than any fantasy land. And I think that may be a message kids need today.