Happily N’Ever After turns the world of fairy tales on its head. The basic idea is that each tales is watched over by a wizard and his two assistants, who make sure the balance of good and evil is set properly to allow each story to end happily. One of the assistants (Mamba) is getting a bit bored of the stories always ending in the same way, but is kept in check by the wizard and the other assistant (Munk). Until, that is, the wizard transports himself to Scotland for a golfing holiday… then all hell breaks loose.

The story that’s focused on most is the Cinderella story - though a character that never seems to be mentioned in these is Rick, who works at the castle, thinks Prince Charming is a complete ignoramus (and he is), and is in love with Ella. With the ball looming, her wicked stepmother prevents her from going to the ball, where the Prince is supposed to choose a dashing damsel (helped by his Prince’s Instruction Manual). Ella’s slightly dotty fairy godmother (probably the best character in the movie) gets off to an iffy start by pronouncing that she will fulfil Ella’s wish of becoming a real boy, but after a while gets up to speed on which story it is. Ella is on her way to the ball, Prince Charming is falling in love with her, and everything is going as planned… but, wicked stepmother has noticed weird goings on at the top of the castle and is about to find out how to control the fate of the stories so that the evil characters can win. (Leading to probably the best line of the film - "40 flights of stairs in heels… this had better be good!”.)

The Good

The aesthetics are great, it looks pretty much as good as any of the other 3D computer animated movies out there.

There are some quite funny characters - Prince Charming - actually Prince Humperdink (voiced by Patrick Warburton), the Fairy Godmother (Lisa Kaplan), and Rumplestiltskin (Michael McShane). Other voice actors that impressed with Sigourney Weaver (Frieda, AKA The Wicked Stepmother) and Wallace Shawn (Munk).

The seven dwarves were relatively amusing. Mambo (voiced by Andy Dick) could be funny at times.

The Bad

The music score really didn’t get the job done - it just seemed to be full of songs that the producers presumably thought were hip and trendy (or whatever the modern equivalent words are - I’m probably showing my age here!) but didn’t fit the proceeding at all.

The main characters - Rick (Freddie Prince Jr) and Ella (Sarah Michelle Geller) were just downright boring or annoying.

There is very little imagination in how the story pans out - so much could be done with this concept, but it doesn’t even make as much of is as the first Shrek movie.

It was too predictable, and worst of all, most of the jokes weren’t funny.

The Downright Ugly

The voiceover begins right at the start of the film (voiced by Rick, Freddie Prinze Jr.) was absolutely awful. It was very irritating, not at all funny, and definitely resulted in me a taking a star off the film’s overall rating.


Final Verdict

Happily N’Ever After had a few good moments, but overall was a big disappointment - and that voiceover was a truly terrible idea. Only very young children are likely to enjoy it.

Links

Shrek - a much better anti-fairy-tale animated movie! (Though I didn’t like the sequel at all, and the third was okay but not as good as the first.)

Top Ten Animated Movies
Top Ten Children's Movies



Recommended: No

Movie Mood: Die-hard Fans Only
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Script