Cinderella (2015)

Hey everyone, sorry that it's been a while since my last review. I've been busy with school and work and a couple of other things. But I'm back and I'm making up for lost time starting with the film that I saw a couple weeks ago but couldn't review until now. So without further ado, here is Cinderella.

Plot: So the story takes pla-...you know what? Screw it. You guys know the story, there's no point in writing a plot paragraph for this.

Alright, so what did I think about this version of Cinderella? I would say that my basic feeling for it is that it gives exactly what it delivers through and through, but with a couple of changes that some of which work. Cinderella herself, while is exactly what you would expect her to be, has a little more of a reason to put of with her stepmother and stepsisters. They are able to take advantage of her because of her promise to be kind and have courage like her mother told her to be, and she can't leave because it's her family's house and there's too many memories there. Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine, doesn't have as much of a evil presence as the original Lady Tremaine, but still had a sense of cruelty and manipulation that make her as mean as she's expected to be. Plus, we also have more of a backstory of who she was before she married Cinderella's father, that gives her a better motivation then just be cruel to Cinderella because she's not her real daughter and how much her father loved her. The Prince or Kip as he's called, gets a lot more screen time than the original prince and even meets Cinderella before the ball. And the story line about his father gives us a new and more serious view as to why he is trying to find a wife for Kip which I personally enjoy. Now some of the changes with these characters don't completely work. Cinderella over does saying her moral of being kind and have courage, the stepsisters are a little cartoony, and Cinderella meeting the prince before the ball has been done - and even done better in some cases - with films like Ever After, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella and even A Cinderella Story. But they still have something about them that you can appreciate about them. Even if the prince and Cinderella meeting each other before the ball is nothing new, they still give us their own different spin on their relationship that even delivers a good moral in the end about how they should see each other. Cinderella message of being kind and have courage ties into how she handles being nothing more than a slave in her own house despite having no hope and the evil stepmother and stepsisters being...well... evil. As for Anastasia and Drisella being cartoonly...eh, just trying to still be a little like the animated movie I suppose. If there's one character that I dislike, and this is my biggest problem with the movie, it would be Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. She...just didn't have much to work with. If you enjoy her scene, please don't let me stop you, but to me, she was just so out of place. In fact I think she was a better narrator then she was the Fairy Godmother. But I digress. The production design for his film is very beautiful. The costumes especially stand out really well (Anastasia and Drisella's dresses aside.) You all have seen Cinderella's dress, and it is gorgeous. My mom, my future sister-in-law, Danae and my best friend Candra made it clear of how they would've gone crazy other that dress of they saw this film as little girls. But a lot of Lady Tremaine's dresses where surprisingly appealing too. They just had these very fancy and artistic looks to them that sometimes you might be looking at them more then you're actually looking at the character. The music was also very enjoyable. The lullaby that Cinderella's mom sings to her is not only soothing, but also a little catchy. And I'm not going to deny it, I liked the "Strong" song during the end credits. Yeah it's more or less bland, but it has such a good emotional feeling to it that I can't help but enjoy it. Finally, the strongest part of the film was the last third. I mean the first two-thirds of the movie are fine, but it's the last third that has the real changes to the story that makes it more interesting. They make it all to clear that the climax is not going to be just like in the animated film, and what they go with instead is, in some respects, smarter than what as in the original film.

And that's my review for Cinderella. More than likely, we'll probably still enjoy the animated film much more than this one because it's the one than many of us hold dear and have the most fun because of the characters, comedy, music and so on. But for what we have here, we still have a good movie that we can enjoy and, if nothing else, appreciate because of the changes to the story and the characters that it makes whether they work or not.   

Rating: 70%