08 December 2007

Enchanted and Bee Movie

The roomie's car was suppose to ready on Friday. Sadly, the car shop people said that itr would not be ready until Saturday morning. Alas, roomie is going out of town this weekend (his flight left at 7:30 am). He had to return the rental on Friday -because of his early flight on Saturday - leaving him stranded here at home.

After I got home from work, we talked about the situation. His boss was not pleased with this, missing a day at work, on the heels of leaving for 4 more. Roomie was also mad, as he needed to get a few things done before he left, so I decided to take him to work. And instead of leaving only to pick him up hours later, I saw two movies.

Enchanted came first, and is truly a funny film, that pokes fun at Disney animated films. In a star making performance, Amy Adams shines as the Giselle, the flighty animated alternative universe version of Snow White, is awaiting her handsome prince to come. Of course, per all Disney films, there is an evil witch who wishes to destroy the princess.

In great scene chewing performance, Susan Sarandon plays the witch to pitch perfect. After pushing Giselle into the real world of Manhatten, she continues to plot her revenge. And while here, the film becomes another, often overdone fish out of water tale, the story still works.

Perhaps it is because of the earnist performance of Adams who makes it work, along with dashing handsome James Marsden as her witless, but earnest, Prince. The film also works with some splashy musical numbers, and pantomiming CGI chipmunk named Pip who manages to steal some scenes.

The one thing I feel that does not work is Patrick Dempsey, who comes off as dim witted and his performance lacks any sort of animation that the rest of the cast show.

There are a number of clever Disney in-jokes in the film, but I liked the scene in Time Square were Marsden, as the prince, is on top of a bus. The camera is looking up at him and on a billboard behind him is an advert for Superman Returns -which he was in. Not much of an in-joke, I guess, but I was amused.

I also saw Bee Movie, which while never being a bad film, never become the funny film it could've been. It has some clever one-liners and some good voice casting -John Goodman manages to steal the film - but the plot is silly and thus not very engaging.

Plus, the film reminded me too much of the Shrek films, with its many pop-culture refrences that will age badly in about 20 years. It also reminded me too much of A Bug's Life, which actually a much better film. I give kudos to Seinfeld, as his first animated script does have some bright spots, but it certainly will never be considered a great film in the tradition of the first Shrek film, or any of Pixar's films.

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