I love this movie so much

You won't be disappointed!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

THIS is how you do an anachronistic fairytale send-up. With sincerity and humor, it firmly commits to its high-concept idea (her "gift" of perfect obedience). The biggest surprise is how much it has to say about patriarchy, class disparity, systemic bigotry, and feminist autonomy, all without losing its light charm.

"Ella Enchanted" is the kind of kids movie that, if you're older and have kids or younger siblings, you can sit down and watch it with them, they'll enjoy it and you can just forget it afterward. For a kids movie, it's not unbearably stupid, nor does it treat kids like they don't have brains, it's just a very generic kids fairy-tale movie filled with simplistic, one-dimensional villains, musical numbers, goofy side-characters, and an obvious love story.Ella of Frell (Anne Hathaway) is is given the gift of obedience by the fairy Lucinda (Vivicia A. Fox) and must keep her gift secret so people can't use it against her. After Ella's mother (Donna Dent) passes away, her father (Patrick Bergin) remarries several years later to Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley), Ella's generic evil stepmother, who has two daughters who are Ella's generic evil stepsisters, Hattie (Lucy Punch) and Olive (Jennifer Higham). The two stepsisters discover Ella's gift of obedience and use it to make her life miserable, forcing her to steal from a mall and get rid of her best friend (Parminder Nagra). Ella, ventures out to find Lucinda to take back her gift, with the help of her house fairy Mandy's (Minnie Driver) boyfriend Benny (Jimi Mistry) whom Mandy has accidentally turned into a book, Slannen (Aidan McArdle), an elf who wants to be a lawyer, and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), whom Ella is at first repulsed by because she believes he is like his evil uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes). As they search for Lucinda, Ella and Char begin to fall in love with one another and Edgar, learning of Ella's obedience, hopes to use her in his plan to assassinate Char before he can claim the throne.The villains of the film are all generic, one-dimensional characters that we have already seen before. Edgar is the evil uncle who wants to rule the kingdom who has killed his brother and now wants his nephew out of the picture, like Scar (Jeremy Irons) from "The Lion King". Then, we have the mean stepmother and stepsisters who treat Ella poorly, like with the stepmother and stepsisters from "Cinderella". While the main characters are given a little more to their characters than just a generic character-type, it doesn't always lead anywhere. Slannen says he wants to be a lawyer and that he does not sing. He has one quick moment where he acts like a lawyer, but in the last scene of the movie he is singing when he has made it clear he doesn't want to sing or perform.The two main musical numbers that I remember being performed in the movie, Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and Queen's "Somebody to Love" serve no purpose to the actual story. They aren't like the songs you would get in a Disney movie where they are used to further the plot, these songs bring the movie to a screeching halt. It feels like these songs are in the movie for two reasons: 1. Because it's a kid's movie and kid's movies need musical numbers in it, and 2. To show off Anne Hathaway's singing. Now, Anne Hathaway is a talented singer and she does a fantastic job in this movie, especially with "Somebody to Love", but that does not dismiss that these songs are pointless to the overall movie and bring the movie to a standstill.At the end of the movie, Ella breaks the spell of obedience by looking at herself in a mirror and telling her to no longer be obedient. For the whole run of the movie, I was questioning why neither her mother or Mandy the household fairy told her to not be obedient to anyone ever again, which would have solved the whole movie within the first ten minutes. I find it very hard to believe that no one in Ella's family thought of this idea for all the years that she had the curse."Ella Enchanted" is a movie that the best way to describe it would be generic. It's not terrible, but it does not stand out when it comes to the long list of kid's fairy tale movies that exist. It has the regular love story that you can see coming from a mile away, simplistic villains with no depth or charm to them who are just made as evil as possible so you hate them and like the heroes more in comparison, goofy side-characters, musical numbers, and all the other stuff you'd expect to find in a kid's movie. Once again, it's perfectly acceptable for kids. While generic and simplistic, it does treat kids like they have a brain and if you have kids or a younger sibling, you can watch with them and forget about it when it's done without feeling like you've lost brain cells.

"Ella Enchanted" is usually the sort of movie that I would heckle, but Anne Hathaway is not someone whom I heckle. It's true that she started out in roles like "The Princess Diaries", but her later turns in "Brokeback Mountain", "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Rachel Getting Married" showed her to be more than just another pretty face, although I do find her quite attractive. Watching the movie, I assumed that the kingdom under its current governance was an allegory for racism: the giants, elves and ogres are only allowed to do certain things, with all prestigious careers reserved for humans. One could argue that using a fairy tale setting to address racism is inappropriate given what racism can lead to (i.e., genocide), but what are ya gonna do? I read that the movie took some liberties with the novel on which it's based. I of course had no idea that it's based on a novel and will most likely never read the novel, so I only have the movie to go on. I actually didn't find it to be a bad movie, mainly since it pokes fun at the fairy tale genre by incorporating modern things (escalators and even a Ray Charles song). Worth seeing.

The protagonist, Ella, has been gifted/ cursed with obedience as she was a baby, by the woefully incompetent fairy godmother. All her life, she is forced to do things she doesn't want to/ mean to do simply because somebody told her to.She managed to grow up without serious issues, but now, her dad has remarried and given her two step-sisters, who just found out that they can manipulate her to do anything they want. She decides to go seek out her godmother and force her to take back her 'gift'. On the way, she meets up with the prince of the nation and his corrupt, power-hungry uncle. She also fights for the ogres, giants, elves and others who had been exiled by the kingdom by the villain.I would call it a Shrek-inspired live action movie. The plot is aimed at kids, but is fairly enjoyable throughout. You have Dr. Seuss-like prose used by the narrator, puns (the prince charming of this tale is called Prince Char), features inner references (Elves are not that short... It's just a myth propagated by the Grimm brothers, Ella is forced to steal some glass slippers, etc), and ripe with anachronisms (The story is set in medieval times, but shows a mechanical, manually operated escalator, references a magazine called 'Medeival Teens', has the prince going to inaugurate a mall, an anti-aging stew made of bat feces and something from oxen - called batox, etc...)Overall, it was enjoyable. The song and dance bits felt weirdly out of place, however.