Cinderella
AMAZONCinderella seems to be the fairytale that has been beaten to death the most, with countless adaptations over the years – some good and some bad. The latest Cinderella installament brought to the masses by Kay Cannon, and James Corden tragically falls into the “some bad” category. Yet when a film is promoted on The Late Late Show in a Crosswalk the Musical segment it’s really no surprise that it’s awful.
Cinderella includes most of the original story beats from the fairytale but with a heavy dose of contemporary pop songs and corporate feminism. Ella (Camilla Cabello), nicknamed “Cinderella” by her stepsisters who actually aren’t that wicked this time, does much of the chores for her step-family as usual but also has an interest in designing gowns. Much of the film is centred on Ella’s interest in dressmaking, with her trying to sell her dresses at the market, where women aren’t allowed to have shops, and her forsaking Prince Robert (Nicholas Galitzine) because she’d rather have a career. The Prince also doesn’t even care to be King, much to the dismay of his father, King Rowan (Pierce Brosnan), while his younger sister Princess Gwen (Tallulah Greive) pops out from the shadows during these tiffs and expressing what should change in their kingdom. Cinderella really tries to hammer home an empowering message, but it totally falls flat due to the plot holes ever present in the film.
If all of this sounds painful to get through, it’s because it very much is. Camilla Cabello can sing and does fine for most of the songs throughout this jukebox musical, but in the original song “Million to One”, which she co-wrote, she can’t fully hit some of the notes. She’s is quite good at certain line deliveries with dry humour, especially when interacting with her fairy godmother called Fab G (Billy Porter), but she isn’t quite up to par in the film’s more dramatic scenes. The rest of the cast is also fine but none particularly stand out; Idina Menzel, who plays Ella’s stepmother, does have a great scene singing Madonna’s “Material Girl” but compared to the stepsisters she’s way too mean to Ella and the film doesn’t balance this out. It seems the writers wanted to make the stepsisters nicer but, in turn, they’re given nothing to do. They also try and make Ella a little bolder: she’s even mouthy to King Rowan in one scene, but she’s never bold enough to stand up to her stepmother. A lot of these character choices just don’t make sense in the story of Cinderella.
Some other good moments include the mice interacting with each other, it is very cute when they squeak along to certain songs, but their CGI looks pretty awful. Another point pokes fun at Pierce Brosnan’s limited vocal range, but these are really the films only good moments. Cinderella is packed the the brim with pop songs, with many not making sense in relation to the film and seem to only be present in the film due to how cheap the licensing rights are. A particular terrible choice was to have Prince Robert sing Queen’s “Somebody to Love”, which was done way better in another Cinderella-esque story, Ella Enchanted, when Anne Hathaway’s character Ella sings it to a crowd of giants.
Even technically the film feels quite bland. There’s no particularly interesting directing or editing choices, and much of the production design and costuming feels overly bold and colourful with no real purpose. It, frankly, looks cheap and either should have been toned down a little or punched up a little more. The CGI is limited at certain points – especially with the mice, as previously mentioned – but it does look good during Billy Porter’s scenes as Ella’s “Fab G”. It’s just a shame that the technical aspects aren’t consistent throughout the film.
Overall, despite a few funny moments, they are too far and between to make Cinderella an enjoyable movie experience. This reimagining feels so unnecessary and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Jukebox musicals tend to be painful enough, but this one in particular is on a whole other level of plain old bad. With countless Cinderella adaptations, there’s really no reason to bother with this one.