6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Ella lives in a fanciful and magical world where all children are given a "gift" from a fairy Godmother at the moment of their birth. Little Ella's birthright is the gift--and curse--of obedience. As a result of this unfortunate circumstance, Ella cannot refuse any command, and is often left at the mercy of unscrupulous personalities. In a bid to regain control of her life, Ella goes on a quest to free herself from this mysterious curse. Ella must outwit a kingdom filled with ogres, giants, wicked stepsisters, talking books and evil plots. And, if she's lucky, she may find love.
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, Cary Elwes, Aidan McArdle, Joanna LumleyComedy | 100% |
Family | 98% |
Romance | 67% |
Fantasy | 40% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
While there is a giant ogre wreaking havoc in Ella Enchanted, it’s the memory of another ogre that is far more problematic for the film. Ella Enchanted wants to be a post-modern send up of fairy tales, replete with ironic uses of pop songs and a contemporary patois that colors the supposedly “once upon a time” setting. Unfortunately that very approach had been offered a few years before Ella Enchanted hit the big screen, in the first Shrek film. Shrek itself harkened back to the old Fractured Fairy Tales that were a regular recurring element of the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, wiseacre send ups of stories most of us had grown up with and knew like the veritable backs of our hands. But Shrek also took on popular culture and the whole framework of fairy tales, and that very same attack is fostered by Ella Enchanted, to much less effective results. Shrek’s source novel by William Steig first appeared in 1990, while Ella Enchanted’s source novel came out in 1997, and while the two are manifestly different in several key elements, they share a certain spirit that can’t be easily dismissed. If the Shrek film adaptation took a broad satiric stroke toward all manner of things, from fairy tale tropes to Walt Disney’s multimedia empire, Ella Enchanted attempts to keep things a bit more focused, skewing the Cinderella story with a few “new and improved” fanciful touches. Both Shrek and Ella Enchanted promote a kind of cheeky humor, though Shrek is the much more smartly written enterprise and perhaps because the film is animated it finds its satiric voice much more easily than Ella’s live action is ever able to.
Ella Enchanted is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This high definition presentation offers gorgeously robust and well saturated colors, but it's a strangely soft looking transfer a lot of the time, especially with regard to some of the special effects shots, which almost seem to ooze or melt, rather than pop with incredible vigor and precision. That said, a lot of the film looks fantastic, including the nice CGI snake, Heston, and close-ups reveal abundant fine object detail. Contrast is very strong and helps the film to traverse the different territories, which vary from brightly lit exteriors to shadowy interiors, with ease. The film's boisterous palette is its best visual asset, and this Blu-ray offers the brilliant colors with very pleasing consistency.
Ella Enchanted's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix really fills the surrounds when the film's ubiquitous source cues spring into action. The film could almost qualify as a quasi-musical, with several big production numbers dotting the landscape, and those all sound very nicely full and nuanced. The film is also awash in fun foley effects, with, for example, Lucinda's crazy entrances offering huge whooshing panning effects that clearly fly across the sound field. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and the film's whimsical underscore also sounds just fine. Fidelity is top notch throughout the film, and there's rather wide dynamic range as well.
Ella Enchanted simply never quite gets to its own happily ever after, at least with regard to its writing, which is far too predictable and never sharply satirical enough to really find its mark. That said, there's nothing egregiously horrible about the film, either. It's filled with pleasant enough performances, it's well staged and certainly extremely colorful. But it never really delivers the sort of hilariously knowing humor that Shrek did, and a lot of the film just feels lethargic and bloated. Hathaway fans will no doubt be very pleased with this Blu-ray's nice looking video and extremely well done audio. Others may want to rent this title first. Just don't watch it in a double feature with Shrek.
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