November 24, 2007 -- “Enchanted” is an enchanting little movie about fairy tale characters coming to life in New York City. The movie achieves a delicate balance between fantasy, reality and romantic comedy in large part thanks to the brilliant acting of Amy Adams as the movie's main character, Giselle. Adams, who previously earned critical acclaim for her performance in “Junebug,” here plays a character who evolves from clueless cartoon-like fantasy to something approaching reality over the course of the film. Aside from Adams, the main thing the movie has going for it is a dragon-slaying chipmunk named Pip.

Giselle, looking very much like Sleeping Beauty in the early part of the film, an old-style cartoon, is dispatched to New York by the evil witch who rules the kingdom, Queen Narissa (played by Susan Sarandon of “In the Valley of Elah”). She is pursued into the interdimensional portal (which comes out through a manhole on a New York street) by Prince Edward (James Marsden of “Hairspray”). He has fallen in love with Giselle. If he marries her, Queen Narissa will forfeit her kingdom. The evil queen dispatches her henchman, Nathaniel (Timothy Spall of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) with orders to kill Giselle before the prince can find her.

Meanwhile, Giselle is careening around the streets of New York, completely unable to cope with humanity, machines or the city. She falls in with a lawyer, Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey of “Freedom Writers”) and his young daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey) and begins to work her magic on them both. Her good cheer, openness, love for life and belief in romance begin to win over the jaded lawyer. Giselle also retains some of her magic. There is a funny scene in which she summons birds, insects and rats to clean the messy house where she is staying. Meanwhile, Prince Edward and the intrepid chipmunk, Pip, are looking for Giselle, as is Nathaniel. Things come to a head at a costume ball, where all the main characters, including Robert Phillip's girlfriend, Nancy Tremaine (Idina Menzel of “Ask the Dust”) confront each other.

This Walt Disney production includes the usual Disney song and dance numbers you would expect in this type of romantic comedy fantasy spoof. It makes fun of the genre, while maintaining respect for it at the same time. There are the usual cultural references and the expected movie in-jokes. Sarandon makes a very convincing evil witch and Spall makes an excellent conflicted henchman. There is a brief epilog at the end which shows what happened with everyone in the movie. It is a very nice enjoyable fluffy film. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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