15 November 2004. Without reading the book, I can't really compare the movie to the original source. Unlike my original fear that Ann Hathaway would be forced into some super-human martial arts expert quite out of character of this type of movie, the kicks and flips were kept usually to an acceptable minimum. Her curse or enchantment wasn't as upsetting as I'd thought it would be to bear...in fact her plight was used to great affect in the movie and with tact. The director, however, went overboard, particularly at the end with kung-fu Chinese martial arts over-extending their stay making the ending really lame in part. For the most part, Ella Enchanted was enjoyable, but the presentation just didn't seem to hit the high notes of what the material really offered. Ann's character didn't seem to allow her to really stretch much more out of her usual role and the Cinderella theme really seemed over-used (even if it might have been in the original book). Six out of Ten Stars.
Review of Ella Enchanted
