amy adams

Enchanted will make some enchanted evening for the dating crowd and also be a boisterous Saturday matinee for youngsters. This tale of fairy-tale characters who tumble down a well in the storybook land of Andalasia and come rocketing up a manhole in New York's Times Square has a piquant idea and enough good jokes to overcome its uneven moviemaking and uncertain tone.

Best of all, it has Amy Adams as the gorgeous maiden Giselle - and she carries the film gracefully and uproariously on her creamy shoulders. As a maiden who believes that the greatest power in the universe is "true love's kiss," Adams gets to be a full-blown romantic whose transition to full-grown romantic is in turn sweet, stirring and blissfully funny.

Coming from a magic kingdom where marriages never end and nary a harsh sound can be heard except from trolls and hags, Giselle believes in the power of positive feeling that can't be dimmed even by contemporary divorce rates. But in the glorious hustle and bustle of Manhattan, she begins to think that love at second glance might equal or exceed love at first sight, and that all emotions, even anger, have their enlivening virtues. Adams touches all those notes with a gaiety that tickles your brain and gives your heartstrings a tingle. She may be the most lovable princess since Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.



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Movie trailer: 'Enchanted' Video
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Showtimes
• Enchanted B
• I'm Not There C
• This Christmas B+
• The Mist C
• August Rush C
• Hitman C
• Beowulf C-
• No Country for Old Men A
• Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium C
• Love in the Time of Cholera C-

You be the critic
Have you been to the movies or watched any DVDs lately? Share your reviews here.

Lions for Lambs-I thought Cruise did great as a politician. I think he was perfect, he portrayed the typical view of a politician beautifully. The movie its self makes you think. We all need to wake up and TRY to make this world a better place.

Submitted by Jennifer

3:01 PM EST, Nov 14, 2007

Lions for Lambs is the worst of Mr. Cruise's films to date. If his vacuously one-dimensional narcissistic performance is dublicated in Valkerie the future of his role at United Artists will be short, though not sweet.

Submitted by ohno

3:32 PM EST, Nov 13, 2007

Lions for Lambs is intellectually stimulating, civically centering and a great review of the value of America. See it.

Submitted by Julie

9:43 PM EST, Nov 10, 2007

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You be the critic
Giselle was just about to wed the man she thinks is her true lover, Prince Edward (James Marsden), in Andalasia, when Edward's stepmother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), intent on retaining the throne, sends Giselle into what the queen hopes will be the Black Hole of New York City. Narissa doesn't count on Edward's diving in after her, thanks to Giselle's talking chipmunk Pip (the voice of director Ken Lima), or on Giselle's enlisting the help of a single-dad divorce lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey ) and his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Robert may resent how Giselle gums up his work and complicates his engagement to a dress designer named Nancy (Idina Menzel), but he can't help helping this damsel in distress. So the Queen dispatches her would-be king and Edward's squire, Nathaniel (Timothy Spall), to ensure Giselle's ruin.

In the opening set piece in Andalasia, director Lima and screenwriter Bill Kelly want to wring comedy out of Ye Olde Disney Fantasyland without shredding it to pieces like the rival DreamWorks' first Shrek movie. So with the help of the songwriters, Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, they conjure a semi-satirical aura of knowing exaggeration - every bit is like a scene or a verse out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Cinderella, only more so. It's amusing, but the romantic farce and the musical comedy take off when the cast arrives in New York. Some of the gags are so good that audiences should discover them for themselves. Let's just say that in my favorite, Giselle tries to clean Robert and Morgan's New York apartment with the aid of her usual woodland creatures: When she sings out her usual cry for help, the critters that arrive are ones New Yorkers don't usually welcome into their living space.

The whole movie swings broadly from slapstick and mock suspense to song. But the film develops a strong amorous undertow; Kelly's script neatly allows for all the potential couples to get the fate or comeuppance they deserve. Marsden, who delivered a breakout musical-comedy performance as Corny Collins in Hairspray, provides a fearless turn as a prince who doesn't see the narcissism in his sword-flashing gallantry, and Dempsey is becomingly modest as a man whose romantic bashfulness can outcharm another man's dash. Pip, who can't speak in New York, becomes a laugh-inducing pantomime as a 3-D chipmunk, and the other performers, including Sarandon and Spall, swing into the cartoonish spirit.

Adams is truly magical. She brews up her most transfixing expressions when words fail her: sometimes she appears to be an innocent lost, sometimes she yearns for help and doesn't know what kind to ask for, but at other times she has more emotion than she knows how to express. Adams pulls second-hand gags with aplomb; Giselle making her dresses out of curtains may be a steal from Carol Burnett's parody of Gone With the Wind, but Adams' delight makes it fresh again. Even when the film is a secondhand rose, she gives it an intoxicating bloom.

>>> Enchanted (Walt Disney Pictures) Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Susan Sarandon, Timothy Spall. Directed by Ken Lima. Rated PG. Time 107 minutes.