Cinderella (2021) - Movie Review
You know it has to be ONE HELL of a movie to make me come back on here and do a review
and GGEZZZ....what a "movie" this was...
It was September 3...a young and naive girl had no idea what was ahead of her.
I was so excited because it was my definition of a perfect movie weekend. Shang Chi was coming out, a Marvel movie I was CRAZY excited for (more than Spider-Man No Way Home if you can believe it!) and a new retelling of my favourite fairytale?! NO ONE was gonna bother me that weekend!
However...
I came out of that weekend feeling so underwhelmed. I was not expecting what I got at all and was actually so depressed.
Don't worry, i've seen Shang Chi three times now so rest assured I'm working on a review for that!
...
WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED WITH THIS MOVIE?!
IT'S BASED ON A FAIRYTALE!
YOU GOT REFERENCE!
YOU GOT PAST ITTERATIONS FOR INSPIRITAION!
YOU GOT A TALENTED...ISH...CAST!
YOU GOT AN AMAZON PRIME BUDGET!
You know you got a real stinker on your hands when I have watch 5 videos ranking the cinderella movies and this movie makes the bottom EVERY TIME!
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| I enjoyed Ella Enchanted, don't at me |
I'm not gonna go through the whole thing cause...
It's Cinderella, you know it, you've seen it, heard it, read it.
The difference in this film is that Cinderella played by...hold up...
Cam....ila....Cabe....llo...
I'll be honest, I had no clue who this chick was! A lot of people seemed hyped when her casting was announced and I was excited too cause I thought she was a relative unknown and would do great...
Geezz was I ever wrong...
I feel I can't even harp on her acting cause everyone's acting in this was kinda rough, the only ones I thought were good was Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver and Tallulah Greive who played the prince's sister (AND who wants to rule the kingdom, so there's that little change)
Anyway this version of Cinderella is a dress maker which honestly I liked and thought could have been really cool. Like the perfect opportunity to make a costume designer on the production really shine in this movie
It seemed they were really trying to go for making Cinderella as independent and capable as ever, the definition of the girl "who needs no man to help fix her troubles, save her, etc which is totally fine...
EXCEPT
The execution was far below that...
Cinderella tries to sell her work in the village but no one is having that!
and instead of Cinderella talking reason to the villagers, making a grand gesture or speech (like she did around the beginning of the movie at the King's Castle) she could show that she is selling multiple dresses, all of different sizes an styles. Then have her offer one of them to this small girl that is shown at the beginning and end of the movie.
It would have been a great way to show that Cinderella is making a connection to at least someone in the village and that small gesture could have been the first step into getting her foot in the door of selling her own work
BUT guess who comes sweeping in to save the day...
Yep...the Prince comes after apparently falling in love with cinderella after her incident at the Castle...
To basically sum that up, the King was having a gathering at this castle where the villagers were present and Cinderella decided the sit in the lap of his father's statue because she couldn't see in the back and that's the moment the prince fell in love with her...?
OOOKKKKAAAAYYYY.....
Anyway, the Prince ends up buying the dress from Cinderella...
I felt that shouldn't have been the case because it didn't feel like Cinderella really accomplished anything. She wasn't able to change the villagers minds or even sell her own product on her own without help, without the help from the PRINCE
So fast forward cause you all the story, the prince invites Cinderella to the ball, she says no but then says yes, Cinderella make a dress and the Stepmother ruins it, Cinderella cries and sings about it and then her Fairy Godmother shows up...
I'm not even correcting myself on this, Billy Porter plays the Fairy Godmother. Honestly if you didn't hear anything about the casting choice or the reason behind why they went in this direction then this scene would have gone by like any other transformation scene HOWEVER...
They wanted to break boundaries casting Billy Porter and you know what, that's cool...reimagining the Fairy Godmother as a character who is genderless, that magic has no gender... sure sure
SO
Why not change the character's name altogether then? Why is the character still called "Godmother?" Adding Fab in front of it doesn't do or change anything
And not only that...he only appears once and spouts lines that I'm sure is going to date the movie in a couple of years...heck maybe even months
If this was gonna be the character to "break" the internet and this is a re-imagining, go all out or don't, I felt they tried to have it both ways and it didn't work...
what DID work though...
the outfit, the heels even though he couldn't walk in them (he tripped like 3 times)...I wasn't too mad...I mean he's no Whitney
I didn't mind him in the role it's just....uuuurrggghhhh
So my girl get her dress and glass slippers and heads off to the ball
The following sequence plays out like it usual
Cinderella goes the ball
Her stepmother doesn't recognize her...actually it's said no one will notice her but the prince 🤔
She finds the prince, they dance and sing and fall in love
OH!
She does run into this character, Queen Tatiana...
Gosh where do I start...
I'm guessing this character is suppose to be from Jamaica because she has an accent...
Like she's trying to speak patois which is the Jamaican language but it's so...BROKEN....patois is already broken but this
It's like why did you have to make her Jamaican in the first place if you couldn't actually get a Jamaican actress or someone who can do the accent well.
The actress, Beverly Knight, is from ENGLAND...
Why not just have a black queen from England?!
It's a fantasy movie! No one would question it!
Urgh....anyway....
Queen Tatiana expresses how much she likes Cinderella's dress and would like to see more of her work so she offers cinderella a chance to basically become her...wardrobe designer and to meet her the following day and if she's late she loses her chance...
I'll be honest I tuned out during this part, because of the accent and our main character! They had Cinderella blab SO MUCH! It was so embarrassing and almost unbearable to watch. Like what is she even....sayyiinnnggg???
