Giselle is a lovely cartoon girl who spends her days with all of her animal friends, dreaming of her perfect prince. Prince Edward is a self-centered royal whose evil step-mother does everything in her power to prevent him from finding his perfect mate, because she doesn't want to lose her throne. Her minion, Nathaniel (Timothy Spall, Harry Potter), travels the land with Edward, keeping him distracted with hunting and various other tasks to keep his mind off of romance. One day, a chance battle with a troll finds Edward rescuing Giselle and the two instantly fall in love and decide to marry the next day. Narissa disguises herself as an old hag, in the Disney tradition of Snow White, and pushes Giselle into a wishing well, landing the poor girl below a sewer lid in New York City, having been transformed into a real human.
Giselle, as innocent and confused as she can be, is hysterical and she has her tiara stolen by a bum and winds up banging on the "door" of a palace casino shown on a billboard. This is where Robert (Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy) comes into her life. He and his daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey) are driving along in a taxi when Morgan spots Giselle. Since Morgan is all about fairy tales and things like that while Robert tries to keep her more grounded, she is thrilled to see a real "princess" and insists that they help Giselle, who is rather helpless at the moment, having been rained on in her lovely princess dress.
Predictably, crazy things happen, including Giselle cleaning Robert's apartment with the local wildlife of NYC (roaches scrubbing a tub is awesome!), her visiting Robert's law office (he's a divorce lawyer) and speaking to a few clients on the wonders of love, and of course, his girlfriend, Nancy (Idina Menzel), coming over for a visit and seeing Giselle in a towel. Oh the complications!
While hanging out with Robert and Morgan, Giselle learns about reality in the human world and sees that perhaps it's not such a great place. Meanwhile, Edward is searching New York for her, along with her chipmunk buddy, Pip, and they are getting into all sorts of trouble, while Nathaniel is also seeking Giselle on orders from Narissa to kill her when they locate her. Bring out the poison apples! The finale finds Edward, Giselle, Robert and Nancy all at a Kings and Queens Ball, where Narissa finally takes things into her own hands to dispose of Giselle once and for all. Of course, Giselle can only be saved by love's true kiss.
Enchanted was so much fun for many reasons. It is a very over the top movie, at least the cartoon characters as humans are. Amy Adams throws everything she's got into this role and I loved her in it. It reminded me of the more physical humor of the 50's and 60's, which I guess was the idea. Everything is so over-acted, but to a really great effect. She is absolutely hysterical and so is James Marsden. Of course, Susan Sarandon shines as the evil but beautiful step-mother and Patrick Dempsey was the perfect choice for Robert's role. The other thing that really appealed to me was the fact that this was Disney mocking itself. Throughout the film, hats are tipped to many Disney classic films and fans of the classics will love this. This is a comedy and a musical, so people do burst into song all the time, but it's just great. Seeing Giselle rally New Yorkers to follow her around town singing about love is truly priceless.
There are many special features including a blooper reel, some deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette, Carrie Underwood's music video for "Ever, Ever After" (which has a cartoon Carrie coming to life - very cute), and a new cartoon called "Pip's Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure" which shows some backstory about how Pip and Prince Edward made it to New York. The best feature of all is one that is Blu-ray exclusive and it's called The D-Files. Here, you can watch the movie again, this time testing your knowledge of all of the hidden Disney references. If you answer them correctly, you get to see a small video clip of some of the production team members discussing why this particular reference was added. It's great fun for fans of the Disney classics. We found ourselves calling out all the references we could spot as we watched the movie the first time and still, we missed some. Good stuff all around.
To sum it up, Enchanted is must-see stuff. Even if you normally hate musicals, you can't help but fall in love with these characters and have a good time while watching Enchanted. The extras give the film more mileage and you'll definitely want to see it at least a second time to catch all the references. If you have a Blu-ray player, I highly recommend this version if you are a Disney fan because The D-Files was a really nice extra. Highly recommended.
