Age of Adaline Review

May 3, 2015May 3, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Sometimes movies are just ok. Not great but not total crap either. Right in the middle and that’s fine. After all, we can’t expect masterpieces all the time!

The new movie Age of Adaline (funny contrast to Age of Ultron!) fits that description. It’s fine. I’m glad I saw it but it is a definite mixed bag.

Basically it is about a woman named Adaline who has a car accident and is struck by lightning which makes her have the power to never age. She is played by the stunning Blake Lively. She looks gorgeous in the clothes from every era (except for one very bad wig in the 60s). It feels like she has an old soul and Lively even has the posture and quiet way of speaking you’d expect from someone born in 1908.

After being pursued as a communist in the 50’s she becomes scared and decides to change her name, occupation and identity every 10 years (all the while staying in the Bay Area in California).

There is a narration in the movie which is so annoying. For some reason the creators felt they needed to provide some kind of ridiculous scientific explanation for what is happening to Adaline and while the narrator is babbling on about neurons and atoms aligning with the moon I wanted to shut him off. Honestly I laughed a lot it was so bad.

And it really takes away from the magic of the story this terrible narration.

Adaline had a daughter before all of this never aging but she did age and now is played by Ellen Burstyn who looks like her Grandmother. As weird as it sounds I bought them as this strange relationship. Ellen Burstyn has been in 2 movies playing a daughter who is older than her parent in 2 years. Who would have thought of that!

She meets a man named Ellis played by Michiel Huisman who I believe is on Game of Thrones (don’t watch it). He is good and very attractive. They have good chemistry together.

Harrison Ford and Kathy Baker play Ellis’ parents and they are also very good. The casting all around really worked in this movie.

Anthony Ingruber plays a yougn Harrison Ford and it is uncanny. He looks and sounds just like him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so close a non-family match in a movie ever. It is amazing to watch and makes me wonder if they could use him for any young Star Wars scenes or maybe a Han Solo stand alone movie. Seriously look at this picture. Don’t you think he looks like a young Harrison Ford?

There is a nice heart to Age of Adaline and like I said the performances are strong with good chemistry. It also looks beautiful although a reliance on close ups got a little bit old.

Be warned there is a scene with a dog that made me cry. It’s pretty emotional.

The problems with the film are how silly the whole premise is but like I said their attempt to take out the magic and make it about science fell completely flat. I also didn’t think it made much sense for her to keep changing. Sure maybe in the 60s but after years her panic seemed a little strange.

The narration is awful and some of the dialogue is very dopey. Also while Lively is good it is a little one note. It would have been nice to have seen more of her in the different ages. Maybe a Forrest Gump style of storytelling but she fears having her picture taken and avoids it at all costs. It ended up feeling like an ordinary domestic drama without any of the magic.

Still, not a total loss. I’m glad I saw it. I’d give it a C.

Pretty tame content-wise. There’s some sex but most of that is off screen and no other offensive content.

Any of you see it let me know.

Jupiter Ascending Review

April 14, 2015April 15, 2022 | Rachel's Reviews

I must just be in a very good mood this month. Just in April I liked the ridiculous action picture Furious 7, the dopey romance movie Longest Ride and now the over the top scifi space opera movie Jupiter Ascending.

Directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski of Matrix fame Jupiter Ascending is just nutty enough to be entertaining. I can totally see why a majority of critics hated it because it is so silly but I didn’t take it very seriously and had fun with it.

Basically the plot is Mila Kunis plays Jupter Jones a daughter of Russian immigrants who finds out she is the reincarnation of an extra terrestrial queen who was murdered after being alive for 91 millennium (rough to go down that way!).

As the genetic match Jupiter can now ‘own’ the earth but the 3 children of the queen are not happy about this arrangement so they each send down emissaries who try to kill/capture Jupiter. This all catches her quite off guard as she is a simple cleaning lady.

Channing Tatum plays Caine Wise a part wolf species who is quiet, thoughtful and ‘one step up from a dog’. He is the hero of the movie constantly rescuing and listening too Jupiter prattle on about her life. Hmmm…I wonder if they are supposed to be together in the end?

Caine is hired to find and protect Jupiter so that she can marry one of the brothers named Titus played by Douglas Booth. All the performances in this movie are very campy and silly. Titus is kind of like Chuck from Gossip Girl in space.

Tuppence Middleton is the sister who tries to befriend Jupiter so she can manipulate her. She bathes in a special water daily that like the magic flower in Tangled makes her young. (She’s only been alive 14 millennium after all).

And finally Eddie Redmayne is Balem who is the rightful heir to Earth and is resentful this stupid girl has come to thwart his plans of literal world domination. He wants to keep earth as his harvest grounds for the eternity liquid which takes 100 people to make 1 vial and oversees a refinery of sorts to make the liquid. Redmayne is so ridiculous in the role with a quiet gravely ‘bad guy’ voice that I found hilarious when I think it was supposed to genuinely menacing. Either way I had fun watching it.

Sean Bean also appears as a tough guy who is part honeybee (like I said this is a nutty movie). Jupiter it turns out can rule the honeybees so Striker is easily convinced of her royal qualities. “Bees sense greatness when it is near them”…

I’m not sure if the Wachowskis intended there to be a strong Oedipus complex to the movie but especially considering Lana’s story it is a little strange. All 3 of these siblings are kind of in love with their mother and gush about how beautiful she was. One of them is about to marry her!

As we expect with a Wachowski film the visuals are dazzling and the characters are very creative in their design. The costumes, makeup and hair are also superb

The action is a ton of fun with the highlight being an early battle between Caine and Balem’s thugs in Chicago. Caine has these air powered rollerblades that let him fly around the city and the special effects look flawless. They create an easy out as far as humans by having a memory erasing device like in Men in Black so they can harvest their humans without anyone noticing.

That’s not to say the movie is perfect. I wish Jupiter had been a little bit of a stronger character. She makes some pretty dumb choices and is manipulated rather easily. She also is constantly the damsel in distress needing to be rescued.

It also gets a little Phantom Menacy with all the discussion of land ownership and the ‘rights’ to the Earth by the siblings. Too much exposition, a convoluted script and definite plotholes in the story detract a little. Jupiter’s earthly family is also a complete caricature of a Russian family. Quite cringe inducing but they are in the movie very little.

In a way it is too bad it did so poorly because I would be curious to see what the Wachowskis could do with this world. Perhaps Jupiter would be a stronger character in sequels but sadly we will never know.

I first heard about Jupiter Ascending because when it premiered at Sundance the crowds booed. I get it. It’s probably too nutty for a stuffy crowd like Sundance. It would have been better to premiere it at a comicon or something like that. I could see this movie developing a cult following of sci-fi fans who like the campiness and style of the film.

In the end Jupiter Ascending is far from a masterpiece but as a hokey piece of sci-fi family soap opera with some good action and beautiful world building I enjoyed it. With the exception of some very dopey dialogue driven scenes it clips along fast enough to keep me mildly engaged and amused. I don’t need to see it again but I enjoyed it none the less. The only thing I can think to compare it too is a really silly episode of Star Trek. It’s kind of like a telenovella but in space.

As far as content there is some nudity including more than one bare bottom and action fight sequences that get a bloody. No real language that I noticed.

So I’d say give it a shot and maybe you’ll find something to entertain you too!

Overall Grade- B Content Grade- B

To get a little more feel for the film here is the trailer.

Woman in Gold Review

April 12, 2015April 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Ah the movie that might have been…Sometimes a movie has such potential which is then squandered by bad writing and acting. For instance, Disney’s Brother Bear frustrates me to no end because it had potential and then it makes one bad choice after another. Unfortunately Woman in Gold is another such movie. The true story at its core could have been a good movie but instead we get a tedious poorly acted melodrama.

It is the story of Maria Altmann who fought to reclaim the painting of her aunt by Gustav Klimit called Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer which was stolen from her family by the Nazis.

Old Altmann is played by Helen Mirren who does what she can with the bland role and script but we never see any uniqueness to her character, anything that feels authentic or real. Instead she is just a victim we feel sorry for but don’t really get to know .

Ryan Reynolds plays her friends son Randy Schoenberg who she hires as her attorney. He has a wife and new baby and a new spot in a firm so taking on a side case with a long shot request is a risk. Again this sounds interesting but Reynolds is really bad. I didn’t buy him for a second in the part and he was completely flat except for when he had to get emotional but even that seemed to come out of the blue.

I think a little more of a serious actor like a James McEvoy might have worked better. I kept feeling like Reynolds was going to bust out laughing and instead he just rattles off legalize about the case. He really was bad..

Katie Holmes plays his wife and she’s beautiful but a terrible actress and Tatiana Maslany plays the younger Maria who flees Austria with her husband. The flashback scenes go on way too long and it is all stuff we have seen before and not a lot of tension because we already know that they made it to America. I actually nodded off for a few minutes I was so bored with the bad guys chasing the innocents around Vienna.

Then we get some courtroom scenes that I felt I had seen a hundred times and were completely predictable. They even make it to the Supreme Court and hmmm I wonder if she loses and all the effort was for not?

A movie with a predictable ending is fine (for goodness sakes I just praised the Longest Ride) but I have to like the characters or the writing is sharp or something for me to latch on to. At least in Longest Ride the couples had chemistry and it wasn’t trying to be all deep and meaningful just a dopey romance. This has airs of an important movie but it fails in nearly every respect.

Helen Mirren is good and it is shot adequately but honestly I was bored and I normally don’t use the B word in my reviews. I feel terrible about what happened to Altmann and her family but this movie isn’t the tribute they deserved.

In those annoying paragraphs at the end of the movie telling you about the rest of their lives we learn that Altmann gave most of the money to charities and the paintings are on display in New York. That sounds much more interesting than a court procedural squabbling with Austria.

Sometimes I also felt that the movie treats the ‘bad guys’ at the Austrian government as if they are on the same level as the actual Nazis shown in the flashback sequences. That’s a little ridiculous. They want to keep a painting not murder 7 million innocent citizens. I’m not saying Maria’s cause isn’t just because it is but the movie could have given some nuance to the Austrians.

No real content problems aside from some mean Nazis and 1 f bomb but that’s about it.

Overall Grade- C- just for Mirren and a worthy story at its core. Content Grade- A-

Furious 7 Review

April 5, 2015April 5, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

When I tell you that Furious 7 is one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen I mean it. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it is completely absurd. So let me try to explain why it might be worth your seeing…

First of all, there is a friend of the blog who I had a recent discussion with about Guardians of the Galaxy being a ‘turn off your brain popcorn movie’. I disagreed with that conclusion; however, my friend Guardians should win a Pulitzer prize compared to this nonsense. I guarantee you will not like Furious 7. It is not the movie for you.

I kept trying to decide why such insanity is better than the explosions and over the top antics of a Michael Bay movie. Why are his films so nauseating but something like this still feels fun? I honestly don’t know if I can explain it. If any of you have insight I’d love to hear it. The best I can determine is Michael Bay movies attempt at humor distances the audience from the characters and then he tries too hard to create a reverence around characters instead of just being an over the top action film.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was probably the best he’s done (I know not technically directed by Bay but having his stamp) in a long time. The problem with turtles is it was edited so poorly I had no idea who they were fighting and where they were so it was just confusing when it should have been fun. The villain was also muddled and confusing when it should have been awesome Shredder.

Furious 7 has over the top set pieces but I always knew who they were fighting, who the bad guy was and what they were after. It isn’t as coherent and exciting as 5 and 6 which were basically heist pictures but it ups the anty on the insanity. Plus, the actors sell the crazy scenes in a way that Bay’s films never do. It feels like they are having a blast

Anyway, the plot to Furious 7 (not that it matters) is Owen Shaw’s brother played by Jason Statham is out to get revenge for his brother. He attacks Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs and they fight (The Rock against Statham not much of a fair fight but it works). Statham ends up getting information about where the team are and how he can hurt them.

Then Kurt Russel’s Mr Nobody makes a deal with Dom, Brian and the team if they get a macguffin known as the God’s Eye away from terrorists played by Djimon Hounsou he will help them deal with Shaw. The rest of the movie ends up being a search for the hacker who created God’s Eye and then all over the world to find the actual device.

I wish that the trailer didn’t spoil a couple of the over the top scenes. It would be more fun for the audience if they didn’t know a car was going to jump from one skyscraper to another but when it is actually happening my theater was laughing and I don’t think that is a bad thing. It’s so over the top they are asking for that kind of response. Plus, the actors play it like it is no big deal. There is no Kate Capshaw type character screaming at all the antics . They are all tough guys and girls with tough guy one liners that made me laugh every time.

Maybe it helps I went into this with extremely low expectations, just wanting to be entertained and I was. As far as flaws it’s a little too long. By the end I was starting to grow less amused with the antics. The quick cuts and shaky cam in some of the fight scenes is a little nauseating and got old and some of them go on a little bit too long. They also don’t use The Rock very much. He’s in the movie for about 15 minutes which seems like a shame with his charisma. Although when he rips his own cast off and says something like ‘it’s go time…’ I was on the floor laughing. Still, he could have been used more. They also love the booty shots of the women which got a little old after a while but at least the women actually did something unlike a Michael Bay movie where they are only gratuitous eye candy.

They did a flawless job dealing with the death of Paul Walker. Evidently some of him was added in CGI, some was using past movies, film he had shot and his brothers standing in. I certainly couldn’t tell. It all looked like him from beginning to end to me. They also have a lovely tribute to him and a very nice sign off.

With certain movies you have to look at what it is trying to do and then ask ‘did it do it well?’. With Furious 7 they were trying to make an over the top action film and they do a great job with it. I’m normally not a big fan of those type of movies but I was entertained by it. I had a good time. Take that for what you will. It’s kind of a hard movie to give a grade too because its so absurd but entertaining.

I will go with…

Overall Grade- B-

Content Grade- C for violence, fighting and gratuitous booty shots.

My youtube review. If you could watch it and give it a thumbs up that would be amazing.

Home: A Dreamworks Hit

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So this weekend shows how little I know about the box office. Dreamworks Home was a huge hit at theaters making 54 million and ending up 1 by a long shot over the comedy Get Hard that brought in 34.

To say I’m surprised would be an understatement. To me Home was at best forgettable and the kids in my theater didn’t seem engaged at all. It’s bright and colorful but saddled with a predictable story and inconsistent characters. Maybe I’ve just seen too many movies because everything felt like a retread of better films and I was left asking a lot of questions about how this world could possibly work. If I’m thinking about all the plot holes than it is usually a bad sign. Plus, the voicecasting I thought was way off. Worst of all it didn’t make me laugh. Not one laugh.

Most critics were a little kinder than me but even the positive reviews said it wasn’t a classic, kind of forgettable. The fact it made more than How to Train Your Dragon 2 opening weekend is a huge surprise. But then again Maleficent was a huge hit and I thought that was total crap so what do I know?

That said, I’m thrilled for Dreamworks. They definitely needed a hit so good for them. It makes no sense to me but neither did Birdman winning Best Picture so who knows?

Why do you guys think Home did so well? What did Dreamworks do right with this release? It still has a huge budget to overcome so it may not help Dreamworks as much as it should but we will see.

AMC Animation Madness Round 1

March 27, 2015March 28, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Figured since I posted about the series and shared my brackets I would post the round 1 results of the AMC Animation Movie Madness. I am a little surprised all the anime films got beaten, but I don’t think any of the winners are bad.

Anything surprise you about what won out? A little surprised on Monsters Inc and Toy Story 3 winning. Happy Wreck it Ralph didn’t make it on but sad about Spirited Away and Wall-e but Pinocchio is great.

What do you think about the next match ups?

I see it being a Pixar lovefest which as a Pixar fangirl (I even like Cars 2) is fine with me. I think the winners of the round will be Lion King, Toy Story, Up, Aladdin, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc (Frozen should win over Monsters Inc but youtube seems particularly virulent in the backlash dept), Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story 2. As a Disney fan cool to see an all Disney/Pixar Sweet 16 except for Iron Giant. I am glad to see that one Golden Age Disney made it to Sweet 16 even if Pinocchio wouldn’t have been my choice, it is certainly a great film.

It’s the very definition of a popularity contest but I think it is kind of fun. I wouldn’t take it too seriously. It’s not saying what is the ‘best’ animated movie. That would have to be determined by animation experts but it is just what people like the most, which on a certain level is interesting.

Would love for you guys to do your own brackets both what you think will win and what you would pick. And create your own bracket of 32 at http://www.printabletournamentbrackets.net/preview/32_Team_Single_Elimination_Bracket

I did a bunch of brackets a while back including the best of the worst of Disney which Bolt won. So it is the movie I would most like to watch again of all the bad Disney movies. Would be really fun if you guys did that bracket too and we could compare our sweet 16, final 4’s, winners. Give it a try!

Second Best Marigold Hotel Review

March 25, 2015August 13, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Lately I’ve been very careful about the 2 movies I’ve seen in the theater to make sure I went at a time when the theater would be nearly empty because of my cough. This was true yesterday as I finally got to see The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This is of course a sequel to the original Marigold Hotel in 2012 which introduced us to a whole bunch of great British actors who are finding a new lease on life at a hotel designed for seniors in India.

This amazing cast includes Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Dev Patel and more. This sequel adds Richard Gere to the mix and he is one of the most attractive men over 60 I’ve ever seen. We also get a far too brief appearance from the great David Strathairn.

Basically the story is Maggie Smith’s Muriel Donnelly is now working with Dev Patel’s Sonny to run the hotel and they begin in America trying to court investors into financing a second venture. Maggie Smith is so great. Sometimes I wish we could clone her so that she could be in every movie. She turns what could be a very trite character into a real person I felt tied too.

She’s someone who has no children and yet she has found a place and people where she can literally grow old and leave an impact, be remembered. As someone who also has no children and is not married I hope I can be so lucky and find a place like the Marigold Hotel when I get older.

The rest of the movie is fairly simple. Sonny is getting married to the stunning Sunaina played by Tina Desai who is one of the most beautiful actresses I’ve ever seen in a movie. Gorgeous.

He is stressed trying to purchase a new hotel and be prepared for inspectors who Richard Gere is.

We also get a lovely little back and forth romance between Bill Nighy’s Douglas and Judi Dench’s Evelyn. It showed that making commitments to each other is not necessarily easier just because you are older. All the actors elevate the material and make it far more engaging than it has any right to be.

I could have done with a little less of the silly plot device of a hitman mistakenly ordered between Ronald Pickup’s Norman and Diana Hardcastle’s Carol but the way it ended was sweet and lovely.

We also get to see Celia Imrie go between 2 suitors and get to know the chauffeur on the way. And Lillete Dubey is absolutely elegant and perfect as Dev Patel’s mother who has a relationship with Richard Gere (who can blame her).

I could totally see why you could tear this movie apart. Is it predictable? Yes. Is it full of tropes and contrivances? Yes. Is it travel porn and a completely ridiculous notion of India and growing old? I haven’t experienced either but I suspect, Yes.

Was I completely charmed by it? Yes.

Sometimes all a movie needs to do is get the right group of actors together, play characters I like, that I want to see happy and tell me a conventional story. Every last person in this movie I liked, I was rooting for. It’s such a contrast to a movie like The Judge which is equally contrived but full of characters I greatly disliked. Everyone was such a jerk in that movie that I turned it off.

There’s a place for the dark and brooding characters and stories but not in a light fluffy happy movie about people growing old. Not in a family drama like The Judge. Another example would be The Family Stone which gave me one unlikable character after another. It’s Christmas for goodness sakes, give me someone to root for!

So, I could see the Second Best Marigold Hotel not being your cup of tea. But if you like pleasant, breezy stories about good people finding happiness than it may be for you. It’s especially lovely to have a movie with so many older relationships and actors elevating material above the script.

As far as content it is pretty squeaky clean. There are relationships outside of marriage but nothing is really shown but that’s about it on the objectionable content scale.

It’s the kind of movie I will buy on blu-ray and pop in along with the original which I already own on a bad day when I need a pick me up. Nothing wrong with that!

Overall Grade- B Content Grade- A+

5 Favorite Musicals Collab

March 23, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I’m very excited to tell you about an exciting collaboration over on my youtube channel. My friend and fellow youtuber LondonCityTVGirl and I have done a collaboration on our five favorite musicals! It was so hard for me to narrow my list down to my top 5 and I don’t know if it really is my top 5 or just 5 that I like. I love her 5 choices also.

My Top 5 Musicals

Simantha’s Top 5 Musicals

If you have an account it would be awesome for you to like both of our videos and subscribe to our channels. You will enjoy both of our content I am sure of that.

What are your favorite musicals? There were so many I could have picked and I honestly debated it for about a month but I am happy with my list. I would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Cinderella

March 19, 2015March 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Miracles happen! I actually liked a live action Disney fairytale offering. It’s shocking after such dismal failures as Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland but I’ve always said if I was going to like one it would probably be Cinderella. As I explained in my previous post I am a huge Cinderella fan and have become a bit of a collector of versions over the years. To me it’s remarkable how the same story can be taken and molded in different ways with equally satisfying results. Each version makes choices on what it is trying to teach its viewers and how the basic tale plays out.

So what about this latest version? Well, I’m delighted to say I loved it!

It starts off differently than any other version I can recall by spending a lot of time with Cinderella and her Mother and Father. They teach her to be ‘kind and courageous’ in all things.

After Cinderella’s mother dies they spend time with just her and her father and then when he marries Cate Blanchett’s Lady Tremaine we see her try to elevate the house with parties and gambling. I don’t think I’ve seen a version with as much time spent with Cinderella, her father and Stepmother.

Lady Tremaine is very jealous of the relationship between her husband and his daughter and we learn later that it is because she once had such a love but he was taken from her. She feels she never got her happy ending which I thought was a clever spin on the character.

Blanchett is so good as Lady Tremaine. It feels like she is enacting her revenge on life on Cinderella and it makes her a deliciously complex and fun villain.

They stick pretty closely to the animated version (thank goodness) once the story gets going and I enjoyed seeing little easter eggs to the original throughout. For instance, she is getting eggs and is humming ‘Sweet Nightingale’ which is a number I love with the bubbles in the original.

Cinderella works very hard as always and she has friends with the mice who thankfully don’t talk but are just cute squeakers. Lily James is much better than I expected her to be as Cinderella. She is is fine in Downton Abbey but shines much more here. There is a warmth to her that reminded me of a young Kate Winslet.

One day she is out riding and meets the Prince who she convinces to not kill a magnificent steer in his hunting party. The Prince played by Richard Madden gets a fair amount of time here and I thought he did a good job. He wants to marry for love and maybe even a nice country girl which I thought was cute.

Cinderella’s kindness towards the steer is what impresses him the most and he can’t get her out of his mind. When his father the King insists he get married he proposes a ball where all the eligible maidens in the land can attend. This is, of course, a ploy to get to see and hopefully woe Cinderella again.

The announcement is made and Lady Tremaine and her daughters get right to work. The stepsisters are played with a lot of nasty humor by Downton Abbey’s Sophie McShera and Hayley Atwell and the costumes are magnificent by 3 time Oscar winner Sandy Powell (I think there are like 3 women who have won all the costume Oscars…).

I was kind of hoping the sisters would have the big bustles like in the original. That would have been hilarious but their costumes were so bright and colorful I enjoyed it.

Then we get to the devastating moment of Cinderella trying to go to the ball. In this the mice don’t make the dress and nothing is stolen. She refits her Mother’s dress in pink which makes Lady Tremaine all the more angry at Cinderella for both presuming to go to the ball, compete with her daughters for the Prince and for bringing up her Mother. She quite viciously tears the sleeve off the dress and Cinderella is devastated.

And this is what most people get wrong about this moment- Cinderella is not devastated about the ball and her chance to meet the Prince. She is devastated because the story her Mother taught her about ‘kindness and courage’ seems to have been a lie. It does not win in the end and that’s the hope which has been shattered.

Haven’t we all had such a dark moment where we are in need of rescue? Well, I believe like Cinderella if we are good people the rescue comes and so it does here with the Fairy Godmother played by Helena Bonham Carter.

When she’s not in a Tim Burton movie I really like Carter (such as in The King’s Speech). Here she is magical, silly and a little absent minded. I also really liked the way they did the transformation of the lizards, mice and geese. It was a slow change and you could still see characteristics of the animals in the final creations.

When I had seen trailers I didn’t care for Cinderella’s dress. The animated dress is like liquid diamonds, so beautiful but the way they explain is actually touching and the look grew on me.

The scene at the ball is gorgeous and there is genuine chemistry between the Prince and Cinderella. Mostly just a sense of freedom for our heroine and that she is getting a break from all the hardness in her life (don’t we all need a break from the hardness!).

As I said, Lily James is so likable in the role and you root for her without her feeling cheesy or preachy. It really does feel like she believes in kindness and courage and is trying hard to lead a good life.

I won’t spoil any more of it for you but I thought the way it played out with Cinderella and Lady Tremaine was brilliant and I loved how they handled the glass slipper sequence.

The supporting cast is all great and I liked there was a little bit of diversity for this kind of story. Stellan Skarsgard is good as the Duke, Derek Jacobi as the King and my particular favorite was Nonso Anozie as the Prince’s Captain who was funny in every scene he’s in.

There will be some who will claim Cinderella isn’t modern enough. That it doesn’t show an empowered independent woman and that may be true (although not in every version of the story). They will often claim it tells young girls marriage to a Prince is the answer to all of life’s problems. In my view that is the an extremely superficial reading of Cinderella and a story which has persisted in popularity since the Middle Ages deserves a little more pondering.

The reason Cinderella is powerful is because it teaches young girls that no matter what happens to them they should never give up hope. In that sense it is very empowering. In this version it also teaches us that kindness and courage always win over cruelty and deceit. Cinderella is not valued merely on her looks but her goodness and that is why she is rescued from her unhappy state. May we all have that hope in our dark times.

After all a dream is a wish your heart makes…

Overall Grade- A+ Content Grade- A+ (nothing offensive in this at all)

My youtube review