Movie Review: Happily N'Ever After

In yet another CGI-laden children’s feature aimed at lampooning fairy tales, Happily N’Ever After falls short of its predecessors.

In fairy tale land, life as we they know it is watched over by the Wizard (voiced by George Carlin). Deciding to take a vacation one day, the Wizard leaves his two assistants, Mok and Mambo, in charge. When Cinderella’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wicked stepmother, Freida (Sigourney Weaver), stumbles upon the hapless Mok and Mambo during the Princes ball, she quickly outwits the wizard’s assistants and takes charge of the wizard’s staff. Before we know it, she has gathered an alliance of villains throughout all of Fairy Tale Land and begins to wreak havoc in an attempt at control and revenge upon her hated stepdaughter.

Viewers young and old could find many things not to like about Happily N’Ever After. The movie is boring, to put it simply. With few laugh out loud moments and a dragging plot centering on the dominatrix, like Freida, one begins to lose interest after a scant few minutes. Fearing myself old and somewhat jaded against a children’s feature, I soon realized my six-year-old daughter had lost interest as well.

To add to the bland story line problems, this is a film concept that has been done many times over of late. Failing to bring anything new or enjoyable to this stale children’s formula, it would appear N’Ever After is forgettable even in the eyes of their target audience.

Packed with a grand cast of voice actors, one would expect them to generally raise the level of a film suffering from poor writing. Unfortunately, our cast seems as disinterested in the subject material as their viewing audience. Even voice acting legend Patrick Warburton seems under used in this one.

Not all is rotten in fairy tale land as the animation itself is on par for what is expected in CGI animated kids features these days. Solid animating with decent emotion prevails throughout, showing us the only interesting aspects of the film. From the military-minded Seven Dwarves to the biker babe Three Witches, the character designs are a stand out and are the only aspect that managed to get me to crack a smile.

Article Author: Casey Criswell

Falling in love with bad horror films at a very young age, Casey Criswell strives to bring back the classics in today's modern age of horror remakes. Armed with nothing but a DVD player and keyboard, he charges into battle with his mighty battle cry …

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