Enchanted

November 29, 2007

Enchanted is a 2007 comedy-fantasy-musical film directed by Kevin Lima. The movie uses live action, traditional animation, and computer-generated imagery, and stars Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Idina Menzel and Susan Sarandon.

Plot

Giselle (Amy Adams) lives in the blissful animated world of Andalasia, where magical beings frolic freely, animals are talkative companions and musical interludes punctuate every interaction. Though Giselle is currently engaged to the handsome and valiant (and bumbling) Prince Edward (James Marsden), her fate takes a turn for the worse when his stepmother, the villainous Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), throws her through a magic portal, apparently to her doom, in order to keep her son single and thus remain queen.

But Giselle’s plunge into darkness lands her in a strange new world - the unforgiving live-action world of modern day New York City. As the cruelty of this new place wears down the fairy-tale idealism of the once carefree princess, such as a homeless man stealing her tiara, the frightened Giselle meets Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), who takes her into his apartment despite belief that she is a little crazy. Rob is a divorce lawyer who is serious and doesn’t believe in Giselle’s gushings of happily-ever-after and true love’s first kiss. The next morning he becomes aggravated when he and his daughter find Giselle has rats and other vermin cleaning their apartment and constructed a dress using material cut from the curtains. Nancy (Idina Menzel), Rob’s soon-to-be-fiancee, walks in to find Giselle in her towel and leaves assuming the worst. Giselle also starts to sob at Rob’s office when she finds a couple is getting a divorce which causes an incident that causes Rob’s boss to reprimand him. At the end of his patience, Rob gives Giselle some money and tells her to go find her prince. Giselle promptly gives the money to an old woman, which leaves Rob to shake his head in pity and join her.

Queen Narissa’s henchman, Nathaniel (Timothy Spall), goes after Edward and Pip the chipmunk who journey off to save Giselle. They stop at a motel, where Nathaniel sneaks out to give Giselle a poisoned apple while Pip, unable to speak in this world, has a frustrating time alerting the Prince of the minion’s intentions. Rob is shocked when Giselle tells him that she and Edward only knew each other for a day, while Nancy and he have dated for five years. She starts a song, and Rob claims he never sings or dances - ever. Spontaneously starting a musical production number with everyone in the park uncannily able to perform with her, Giselle climaxes by sending Nancy a wreath of flowers as an apology from Rob along with tickets to the ball. Charmed, Nancy promptly accepts. Nathaniel fails twice to poison her, only to be stopped by Pip, and Narissa becomes infuriated. Giselle stays another night, to which Rob tells her he will help her because he doesn’t believe Edward will show up. She yells at him, and becomes giddy when she finds out that she is experiencing anger. They both stare at each other for a moment, and when Rob leaves she falls into a chair realizing she is falling for him and he does the same on his bed.

Edward finds Giselle the next morning, and they agree to leave right after the ball, for she is reluctant to go. Giselle and Morgan go shopping with Rob’s emergency credit card for the perfect gown. Giselle and Robert dance at the ball, where he sings quietly as they dance. Nancy is smitten by the romantic Edward, but keeps her eyes on the couple. As Giselle and Edward go to leave, Narissa appears as the old hag. Seeing Giselle upset as Nancy kisses Rob, she offers her an apple that she says will make Giselle forget the whole experience. She takes it and collapses on the floor. Edward returns and Narissa claims she fainted as Rob and Nancy run over. Nathaniel appears and admits the plot that she was poisoned, sadly with his help. If the spell isn’t broken in a minute (which will be midnight) she will die.

Remembering her belief in true love’s first kiss, Rob tells Edward to kiss her, only to find it doesn’t work. Edward turns to Rob and realizes the reason is because Rob is her true love. Rob promptly denies this, but Nancy says it’s okay and to kiss her before it’s too late. He does, and Giselle wakes up. Narissa then transforms into a dragon and says she will have to kill them all. She plans to start with Giselle, but Rob intervenes (and is promptly seized.) Narissa climbs on top of the building and Giselle grabs a sword and follows, leaving a slipper behind.

Giselle chases the Narissa-dragon to the point at where it falls off the Woolworth Building, thanks to help from Pip, and dissolves into glitter. Giselle catches Robert, as the two slide down the roof of the Woolworth Building. The two kiss. Nancy finds the slipper, and Edward puts it on her foot, claiming it to be a perfect fit.

Living happily ever after, Giselle and Robert get married and open a clothing store called Andalasia Fashions, helped by animals who come to Giselle’s voice. Prince Edward and Nancy go back to Andalasia where the two get married, making Nancy an actual Princess. Both Pip (in Andalasia) and Nathaniel (in New York City) become successful authors. In closing, a story book entitled "Enchanted" closes.

Primary cast

Main

Actor	Role
Amy Adams	Giselle
Patrick Dempsey	Robert Philip
James Marsden	Prince Edward
Timothy Spall	Nathaniel
Idina Menzel	Nancy Tremaine
Susan Sarandon	Queen Narissa
Rachel Covey	Morgan Philip
Jeff Bennett	Pip in Andalasia
Kevin Lima	Pip in New York

Disney-related cameos

Actor	Role
Paige O’Hara	Angela
Jodi Benson	Sam
Judy Kuhn	Pregnant Woman with Kids
Jon McLaughlin	Ballroom Singer
Julie Andrews	Narrator

Score and songs

The film’s score is written by accomplished songwriter and Broadway composer Alan Menken, who has worked on a number of Disney films: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Newsies, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home on the Range, and The Shaggy Dog. Fellow Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz (The Prince of Egypt, Pippin, and Wicked) has written the lyrics for six songs, also composed by Menken. Menken and Schwartz previously worked together on the score and songs for Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

After the titular song "Enchanted" (a duet featuring Idina Menzel and James Marsden) was cut from the movie, only five songs remain in the finished film. Composer Alan Menken has stated that the song will most likely be included as an extra on the Enchanted DVD. The songs are homages to traditional Disney ballads, rather than parodies as previously reported. "Ever Ever After" will be released as a single, sung by Carrie Underwood, with the Spanish version recorded by Gisela.

Soundtrack listing

1. True Love’s Kiss - Amy Adams and James Marsden
2. Happy Working Song - Amy Adams
3. That’s How You Know - Amy Adams, Marlon Saunders and Chorus
4. So Close - Jon McLaughlin
5. Ever Ever After - Carrie Underwood
6. Andalasia
7. Into the Well
8. Robert Says Goodbye
9. Nathaniel and Pip
10. Prince Edward’s Search
11. Girls Go Shopping
12. Narissa Arrives
13. Storybook Ending
14. Enchanted Suite
15. That’s Amore - James Marsden

• 1: A homage to such songs that Disney heroines sing about how they dream about being loved such as "I’m Wishing" from Snow White and "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella, as well as duets of the same purpose such as "One Song" from Snow White and "Once Upon a Dream" from Sleeping Beauty.
• 2: A homage to such songs as "Whistle While You Work" from Snow White and "The Work Song" from Cinderella.
• 3: This song is a self-parody of Alan Menken’s compositions for his Disney features. Specifically to his production numbers, "Under the Sea" and "Be Our Guest".
• 4: This song is similar in sound to the single version of "Beauty and the Beast" and "A Whole New World" that plays at the end of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, respectively.
• 5: Released as a single and featured in the ending montage.
• 8 & 9: Contains a brief snippet of a minor version of Menken’s "Beauty and the Beast".
• 11: A completely different version of this score is used in the film. Instead of using this version, an instrumental and melody-less version of "Ever Ever After" is used.
• 15: Heard briefly in the opening shot of Giselle and Rob’s dinner at the pizza restaurant Bella Note.

Rating

The film is rated PG by the MPAA for some scary images and mild innuendo.

Reception

As of November 28, 2007, reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes deemed the film a 93% rating out of 100 reviews (93 "fresh", 7 "rotten"), with a 92% user average. Reviewers cited that Adams was a surprisingly good actress coming from almost nowhere (although she does have an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and numerous accolades for her role in Junebug); some have compared the movie to Mary Poppins’ effect on Julie Andrews‘ career because of this.

All of the reviews have said that, although the story is relatively predictable, the way in which the predictability of the film is part of the story, the amazingly extravagant musical numbers, along with the way in which Disney makes fun of its previous movie characters outweighs any squabbles about storyline or being unsure of what age bracket the film is made for.

Box office

Enchanted earned an estimated $8.1m on Wednesday placing at #1. Enchanted also placed #1 on Thanksgiving Day, earning $6.8m to bring it’s two day total to $14.4M. On Friday the film grossed $14.4M bringing its total haul to $29.3M placing ahead of other contendors. "Enchanted" made an estimated $35,332,000 on the Friday-Saturday period and an estimated $53,048,000 over the 5 day Thanksgiving weekend. "Enchanted" is the first film since 2000 to open at #1 on the Thanksgiving frame.

Video game

A video game of the film was released November 13 for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance.

Disney Princesses marketing

Although Giselle is shown in both animated and live-action forms, she is not being marketed as one of the Disney Princesses, as was thought when a 2007 Toy Fair showed a Giselle doll featured with packaging declaring her with Disney Princess status. Disney has since decided not to include Giselle in the Princess line when they realized they would have to pay for life-long rights to Adams’ image.

Filming style

The film begins with animation and then switches to live action. The fairy tale scenes in the film are done in 2-D animation, as a tribute to past Disney fairy tale films such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This is the first feature-length Disney live-action/traditional animation hybrid since The Lizzie McGuire Movie. The traditionally-animated characters do not interact in the live-action environment in the same manner as in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but there are some scenes where the live-action characters share the screen with the 2-D characters, particularly, a live-action Nathaniel communicating with a cel-drawn Narissa. It is the first Disney film theatrically released in America to feature traditional animation since Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.

The fourteen minutes of traditional animation were not done in-house (most of Disney’s 2D animation artists were laid off after the CG boom of the late 90s), but by the smaller Pasadena-based company James Baxter Animation, started by legendary lead animator James Baxter. Baxter had previously worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, bringing to life many memorable animated characters like Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Various pictures of the animated designs and segments have surfaced on the Internet. In December 2006, Animated-News.com reveals in a short article several designs of the animated characters. As of January 2007, Disney’s "Movie Surfers" show offered a brief glimpse of the film’s animated segment during the 2007 film preview.

The first official trailer for Enchanted, preceded by clips of Disney’s animated classics of the ’90s, premiered accompanying the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The trailer was leaked to a few sites on the Internet beforehand, but it can now be seen on the official Disney Movies website and apple.com. At the end of September 2007, trailers of the film began to be shown on Disney Channel.

Visual effects

All of the CGI animals that help Giselle clean up Robert’s apartment during the "Happy Working Song" were animated and completed by Tippett Studio in Berkeley, California. Tippett was also responsible for the CG character Pip, the chipmunk and the Narissa dragon during the live action portions of the film.

Tags: animasi, animated, comedy, enchanted, komedi, romantic, romantis

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