Tag Archives: family friendly movie

Movie Review: Amazon’s Cinderella

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If there’s one fairy tale that’s been done to death, it’s Cinderella. So, when Amazon announced their new pop musical version of the story, I wasn’t super excited. Through the grapevine I’d heard rumor that it wasn’t all that good, but I was intrigued.

Armed with a bowl of popcorn and my favorite snarky movie buddie, hubby dearest, we tackled the beast.

The Story

The basic Cinderella story is actually a bit of an insult. It assigns a woman’s worth to the wealth and prestige of the man she manages to marry. Cinderella herself is stuck in a miserable situation as an orphaned daughter stuck living with a step mother. This puts her last in line for any sort of beneficial marriage arrangement as her step mother’s other two daughters would have the first pick of suitors. Her rags to riches story is wish fulfillment for anyone who has felt stuck in their situation.

Amazon’s 2021 Cinderella twists that narrative and finally gives Cinderella dreams and goals of her own that don’t revolve around managing her father’s household or bagging a man. The Ella in this film wants to start her own business as a dress maker in a culture where women aren’t allowed to do much of anything.

The prince received a motivational makeover as well. In this version, he has no interest in finding a woman to marry and would rather live a life of his choosing with his friends. This changes when he meets Ella while in disguise and admires her drive. He invites her to the ball stating that it would be a great place to find people to buy her dresses, which is the only reason she ends up wanting to go – not because of the possibility of meeting the prince.

In previous versions of Cinderella, there’s been a trend of seeing who could make the stepmother and one of the stepsisters the most cruel, while the other stepsister is sympathetic to Ella. In this version, that cruelty is toned down to a mild frustration. The stepmother does put her daughters first and tends to ignore Cinderella. There are only a few instances where she could be called mean, and they’re pretty tame. After everything, she ends up being the character most sympathetic to Ella’s situation.

We also see far more interesting character development between the king and queen, who in previous versions of Cinderella only had one conflict – that of who their only son was going to marry to secure the future of their kingdom. In this version, they’ve added a younger sister, who has far greater political aspirations than the prince, and also put the relationship between king and queen itself in rocky territory.

With all these different focuses in the story, it dilutes the Ella story and adds in a whole lot more to consider. While this made it more interesting, it made it harder to just sit back and enjoy.

Have no fear, there is a charming happy ending that’s a twist on the original.

Meet the step family

My Review

To describe this film best, take Disney’s original animated Cinderella, the Greatest Showman, and Hamilton – and throw them in a blender. Amazon’s Cinderella is a celebration of pop music stuck in Edwardian England. More than the music, there are all sorts of weird anachronisms that pop up, like zippers on clothing and one shot that included an angle grinder. For me, that was super distracting.

That said, the music and dancing were the best part of the film hands down. Visual candy.

As for everything else, I liked how they updated Ella’s character so that she wanted something other than bettering her domestic situation. However, all the other additions for all the other characters, while cute, complicated the story enough where it took away from the experience.

Camila Cabello and Billy Porter star in CINDERELLA Photo: Kerry Brown � 2021 Amazon Content Services LLC

Recommendations

While this won’t be my favorite Cinderella iteration (Ever After still wins) it’s still a solid, entertaining show. It’s family friendly, minus a single potty joke. I swear James Corden can’t help it. I imagine viewers of all ages would enjoy it, as there’s enough eye candy to make up for any slower talking portions. That, and the all star cast, including Camilla Cabello, Idina Menzel, and Minnie Driver, knocked their performances out of the park.

I give Amazon’s Cinderella 3/5 – a solid watch, entertaining, but with a few flaws that draw away from the experience.

Thank you for joining me as I shared my review of Amazon’s Cinderella today on the blog. If you enjoyed reading this review and would like to see more, please consider connecting with me by either following the blog here on WordPress, liking my Facebook page, joining my Facebook group, or subscribing to my newsletter. As an added bonus, newsletter subscribers receive free books, stories, and special offers every week.

Throwback Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl

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It’s been seventeen years since the debut of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which means this movie has been around as long as my marriage. A few years ago we tried to show this to my kids and they decidedly didn’t like it. It was too spooky, had freaky skeleton pirates, and required attention to small details like the dialogue. This last weekend we put it to the test again — and they loved it.

The Story

In short, the main character of this story is actually the pirate vessel the Black Pearl herself. It is the boat itself that has influenced everyone in the story and driven the leading characters to make unexpected choices. Elizabeth rescues Will Turner from the Black Pearl when he’s young. Captain Jack Sparrow was the captain of the Pearl until there was a mutiny. The crew of the Pearl became cursed when they got greedy and took Cortez’s treasure.

The rest of the story is spent restoring these characters back to where they belong. Elizabeth needs to end up with Will Turner. Will needs to come to terms with his father being a pirate and still a good man. Jack needs to get his boat back. And, the crew needs to get uncursed.

What’s interesting is how each of these pieces become woven together. Elizabeth gets involved in the curse when she steals Will’s necklace, which is a piece of the Cortez treasure. Will should have always been part of the pirate crew because of his father, but only gets involved after Elizabeth is taken by the new captain of the Black Pearl, Barbossa.

In the end, the story is delightfully twisty. First we are shown all these pieces of each character and then in the last third of the story we see how each of these pieces snap together in interesting ways and everyone gets what they deserve, just not in the way you’d expect.

My Review

This is a fun movie that’s both full of action and heart. Even though this is a pirate story, Elizabeth and Will both face problems that are very relatable to the audience. As an adult there is plenty of dramatic elements and complexity to keep things interesting and for my kids there was enough slapstick humor and action to make it fun.

The sets are incredible, the costume design intricate and fascinating, and even though it’s campy and silly, the acting is actually pretty good.

My Recommendations

This is a great family movie, provided that all are old enough to not be scared by the pirates turning into skeletons and are willing to track what’s happening so it all makes sense. It’s clean, no swearing or overly graphic violence. Yes, there’s plenty of fun fighting and sword play, but very few depictions of blood.

If a kid’s old enough to be okay with the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, they should be fine for the movie.

I rate Curse of the Black Pearl 5/5 stars, super fun, lots of eye candy, and it’s exactly what it set out to be – a great pirate movie.

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Aladdin 2019, Hello Bollywood

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Am I the last one to jump on this bandwagon? Yep. Am I going to use my usual excuse of literally not seeing the movie until last week again? Absolutely. After the whole fiasco with the live action Lion King, 2019, I had my doubts about watching another live action Disney. Hearing rumors of Will Smith being digitally painted blue didn’t help either.

But … I was pleasantly surprised. They took the original story from the 1992 Disney Aladdin, and breathed some new life into it, all without falling into the pitfall we call the uncanny valley. If they had decided to make Abu the monkey talk, then we would have had real problems.

What they did right

Any story that transports the viewer into a new time and place will have an inherent sense of wonder about it, and Aladdin is full of wonder. They created a gorgeous palace and city that felt full of history and culture. The costuming stayed true to the feel of the original animation, but was brought to life in a way that was both beautiful, colorful, and detailed.

Any story set in a foreign land that’s loosely based on a real one needs to be sensitive to offensive stereotypes and unfair comparisons. The very first Aladdin had a handful of these missteps that were corrected in a way that didn’t feel gimmicky. For instance, they swapped out the whole Aladdin runs through a harem bit. The harem is now clearly a school for girls.

Lastly, they framed the story in a new way that added a nice little twist at the end that I thought was charming. One of the biggest questions that the first movie struggled to resolved was ‘What happens to a genie when he is no longer a genie?” In the 1992 movie, Genie stayed magical and didn’t turn into a human. This didn’t seem right. So, the 2019 turned Genie human instead. Works for me.

What they got wrong

I know that CGI is a super fun toy and it lets movie makers create whatever they can dream up (and afford). But – for a critical audience, the best CGI is when you can’t tell there’s been any at all. Poor Abu got CGI slaughtered a few times. Nothing serious, just you could tell where real monkey ended and robomonkey began.

The use of fast and slow motion. This was a directorial choice. Guy Ritchie thought the chase through the market scene that happens when Aladdin runs parkour through Agrabah singing “One Jump” would be cooler if they altered the filming speeds. Dramatic moments were subtly slowed down and action sequences sped up. For me, it made it more silly than necessary.

Ugh, let’s talk about the awkwardness, shall we? Aladdin’s character is known as being a smooth talking, smooth moving street kid. The second he has to pretend he is a prince, all that smoothness flip flops into some amazingly awkwardness that had me hiding under a blanket. It was like 1997 all over again. I get why the awkwardness was important, Aladdin’s big message is that you have to be true to yourself. Whenever he wasn’t true to himself, he turned into a big lump of social disaster. A little awkward is great, funny even, but when it gets to cringe level, tone it down.

And Cue Bollywood!

As promised, let’s talk about how a film that’s meant to have very Arabic origins ended up just like a Bollywood style film. For reference, here’s some of the keystone needs of a Bollywood film:

“Standard features of Bollywood films continued to be formulaic story lines, expertly choreographed fight scenes, spectacular song-and-dance routines, emotion-charged melodrama, and larger-than-life heroes.”

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bollywood-film-industry-India

Of the five criteria, Aladdin 2019 solidly hits at least three. The first and most obvious are the spectacular song-and-dance routines. The two that stand out are the parade welcoming Prince Ali Ababwa into Agrabah and then the wedding dance at the end of the movie. Both rely on large casts, bright costumes, tightly choreographed dances, and a catchy song.

The next of the three is the emotionally charged melodrama. Yep, we got that. Aladdin is playing a high stakes game with a princess, a sultan, and a nasty advisor. Melodrama is baked right in. Did I mention the tiger?

The last of the three is the formulaic story line. There are three wishes, we know what needs to happen, who needs to do what, and why it’s important. There’s an obvious enemy in Jafar. There’s an emotional problem where Aladdin needs to be true to himself. And there’s the secondary story line where the supporting cast may or may not fall in love. (No spoilers!)

All in all

I said it before, I’ll say it again. I thought it was a great movie. Fun to watch with the kids. Visually impressive. Good music. Entertaining story. It’s a great family movie night pick, or even a sing-a-long. My kids liked it, which is saying a lot.

I give the 2019 Aladdin 4 out of 5 stars, solidly good.

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