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Happily N'ever After
Director: Paul J. Bolger
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr.
Rated G
87 minutes
Everyone has them. Those warning bells/spidey sense
that tell us something is not right. When it comes to movies definite
red flags should go up when you see rave reviews by sources you’ve
never remotely heard of, like a radio station in Newark or an online movie
review site. The only thing worse is when a movie’s greatest boast
is “from the producer(s) of…” this desperate plea clings
to the hopes that the sucker… er, viewer liked the previous movie
enough to shell over some cash for an inferior product. Such is the case
with Happily N’Ever clinging to a flimsy connection with the top
notch Shrek films.
And this is coming from a sucker for animation, especially fractured
fairytales, and the trend of kids animated features written for adults
ala, Shrek and Incredibles. Happily N’Ever however offers little
better than a cheap knockoff. It’s unfortunate since it started
strong with a joke about wanting to call Fairytale Land, Canada, but it
was taken. Then they bust into a They Might Be Giants theme song.
From there the fractured Cinderella story has lots of potential, unused
potential. Sure there are moments of goodness, but for the most part instead
of exploring the fracture, the film dwells on shoving the “you don’t
have to be a prince to save the day” moral down our throats. In
the end, you’ve seen worse, and you’ve definitely seen better.
If nothing else rent Hoodwinked, a far superior fractured fairytale that
takes on Little Red Riding Hood.
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