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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 24040
Released: May 1, 2007 |
| Our Price: $1.55 |
| Used Price: $0.84 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Once upon a time will n'ever be the same again. Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Jack from the Beanstalk are all about to live happily ever after when the balance between good and evil gets thrown out of whack. It's up to Cinderella - aka Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar) - to save the day by taking on her power-hungry stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver). But this time, Ella will have to do it without her Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton) as she joins forces with an unlikely army of dwarves, faries, and the Wizard's bumbling assistants, Mambo (Andy Dick) and Munk (Wallace Shawn). Your favorite fairy tales are turned upside down in this funny, fast-paced adventure that teaches the lesson that - no matter who you are - you have the power to affect how your story turns out!
Description of Happily N'ever After (Widescreen Edition):
With the success of Shrek, more irreverent animated fairy tales (like Hoodwinked) were inevitable. Unfortunately, the original blockbuster set the bar so high--for characterization, humor, and heart--that other such 'toons are sure to seem redundant. Neither as clever nor as intricately rendered as the tale of the great green ogre, Happily N'Ever After is no exception. That said, small children may find it easier to follow, i.e. no Matrix references. As with the live-action Ella Enchanted, the CGI-animated story revolves around a downtrodden lass named Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Her full name, naturally, is Cinderella. The man of her dreams is pea-brained Prince Humperdink (Patrick Warburton). Little does she know that royal dishwasher Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr., Gellar's real-life husband) has his eye on her. When the Wizard (George Carlin) goes off on a golfing vacation, he leaves bumbling assistants Munk (Wallace Shawn) and Mambo (Andy Dick) in charge. In no time at all, they get into a scuffle, and Ella's evil stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver), swoops in to take control of Fairy Tale Land. Her first order of business: Let the bad guys win. Consequently, Sleeping Beauty continues to doze, the Seven Dwarves wind up in jail, etc. Ella joins forces with Rick to set things right. Along the way, she realizes that the lowly lad has more princely qualities than the actual prince, and Frieda's reign turns out to be shorter than intended. It's not a bad idea, but the movie drags and the tunes are unmemorable. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Happily N'ever After (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Shrek it ain't... 
2009-08-21 - Happily Never After / B000O58ZHQ
*Spoilers*
I kind of get the impression that "Happily Never After" was born after some marketing executives decided that the colossal success of Shrek stemmed mostly out of a 'mixed up fairy tales' plotline with constant references to known childhood tales, because that's what the movie feels like: a cheap, stripped-down version of "Shrek" with all the cleverness, emotion, and wit accidentally left out in the rush to video.
Perhaps I'm being unfair - I also get the impression that "Happily Never After" is a movie made for children, not adults, and thus I am not the target audience. And I'll admit that if you're just looking for something mindless and colorful to plop the kids in front of for the evening, you could pick a lot worse than "Happily Never After". But they'll get no points for originality from me - there's nothing here that hasn't already been done before, and better.
You'd really think that a 'mixed up fairy tale' type of movie could feature a strong heroine, and indeed "Shrek" certainly fit that bill, but I guess the makers of "Happily Never After" felt they weren't being classically "Disney" enough and decided to import the values of the 50's and 60's into their foray. The character of 'Ella' is painfully weak and insipid, and while the movie COULD have made the point that it's better to make your own destiny rather than wait around for fate to hand you some glass slippers and a ticket to the ball, as Rogers and Hammerstein did so well in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, they perplexingly choose not to. While Ella does get a couple of good kicks in against the baddies, the majority of her role is to slouch about waiting for someone to come marry her. Oh, sure, the movie swaps Prince Charming for the sweet and deserving servant boy, but in the end, Ella is still defined by her marriage to a "prince charming", just with the criteria for what constitutes the perfect husband swapped around.
A word should be said about the voice acting, and that word is, "HUH?". What happened here? I don't expect miracles from Geller or Prinze Jr., but Weaver is an incredible actress and yet all her lines sound painfully phoned-in. Rather than believe that she's somehow losing her touch, however, I choose to think that she shared my disdain for the plot and chose to convey her feelings via intentionally crummy voice-acting. Having now gotten all that out of my system, I have to note that the re-characterization of the seven dwarves as militia-style survivalists was one of the most amusing things I've seen in a children's movie lately, and was definitely the high point of the movie for me.
As I said before, "Happily Never After" is a movie that most young children will enjoy, and most parents will find tedious and stale. If you can get past the lackluster character of Ella, this isn't a terrible movie to pop in for the kids. But, really, I'd rather just show them "Shrek" a second time. Or, better yet, The Spiderwick Chronicles, where girls not only get to help with the action, they wield genuine swords.
Cute and Funny 
2009-05-26 - My grandkids enjoyed this updated version of the fairy tale. The characters were exaggerated but funny. I liked how they included so many other fairy tale characters into the story. Really cute movie.
Good Cast-Decent Movie 
2009-04-21 - A pleasant animated film, Happily N'ever After, is another take on the classic Cinderella story though there are quite few surprises in this version.
The movie is indeed inspired and influenced by the Shrek series and Hoodwinked, nevertheless, it does not match the quality of the aforementioned films.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sigourney Weaver and the rest of the cast do a good job in their respective roles, though the plot, the dialogues, the humor, and the music could have been worked on a lot more.
In short, Happily N'ever After is a film worth watching as it will provide for an evening's entertainment, however, for those with a soft spot for animated films, the Shrek and Ice Age movies, Antz, The Ant Bully, Bee Movie, Cars, Flushed Away, Hoodwinked, Madagascar, Monsters Inc., Over the Hedge, and Ratatouille, are definitely your must-see films. 3.5 Stars
uh, no...just didn't work 
2009-02-02 - *Happily N'ever After* tried to model itself after *Shrek*, straying away from the traditional fairy tales. How *Happily* was different was that Cinderella's evil stepmother took control of the tales' ending by letting the bad guys/villians win. However, *Happily* was just...well...boring!
The Wizard, who ensures balance among the tales, is off to a vacation. In his absence, he places the responsibility among his 2 goofy assistants. In the middle of their "playful" bickering, Cinderella's evil stepmother takes advantage of the situation by seizing the wand that controls balance.
In control, the stepmother bands together all the villians to take control of the kingdom and the "good" characters. Only Cinderella and the king's dishwasher escape. Together, they decide how to get the kingdom back. Along the way, they round up help from the 2 goofy assistants and the air-headed Prince Charming.
Overall, the story just didn't work (poor punch lines, little character development, etc.) Within 10 minutes, I was already looking at the time and wondering how much longer I'd have to suffer through this movie.
Happily N'Ever After - Blu-ray Info
2009-01-31 - Version: U.S.A / Lions Gate / Region A, B(?), C(?)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
MPEG-2 BD-25 / AACS
Running time: 1:27:05
Feature size: 19,46 GB
Disc size: 23,87 GB
Total bit rate: 29.80 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 22.67 Mbps
DTS-HD Master Audio English 3909 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3909 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English SDH / Spanish
Number of chapters: 16
#Commentary by Director Paul Bolger
#Journey of the Characters in the Enchanted Forest
#From Storyboard to Fairytale: A Comparison
#Creating the Happily Story: Bringing N'Ever After to Life
#Deleted Scenes & Alternate Ending
#Games
