Good concept, poorly executed.

A different way of telling a story

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I have seen better versions of this timeless story, though it would be unfair on this version if I listed them. I personally do think Jetlag's version was the better (low-budget) animated version, but also think that this version has many merits too. Maybe some of the character designs could have done with more fluidity, especially the Prince's facial expressions, and I wasn't totally enamoured with the voices of the stepsisters, of course they are not meant to sound or even look beautiful but on both ends of the spectrum of having either a shrill voice or an unnaturally deep one they sounded overdone to me. However, the colours do have vibrancy and the backgrounds are also not too flat. The music is both beautiful and sweet-sounding, the writing is simple but not too much so with enough amusing and touching moments to appeal to the target audience and while perhaps a little padded at times the story has the essence of the story and for the most part its charm. The characters are fine on the most part, while their voices take time to get used to the stepsisters are detestable in look and manner which is about right, Cinderella is an appealing protagonist, the prince is not too bland and the Fairy Godmother is as sincere and benevolent as you'd hope. The voice acting is nothing extraordinary but not terrible either, I thought Cinderella's voice actress did a very likable job. All in all, never is going to be one of my favourites but a decent and worth-watching animation regardless. 7/10 Bethany Cox