Enchanted (***1/4)

With movies as diverse as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, 300 and Beowulf bringing the worlds of live action and animation ever closer, it makes perfect sense for this Disney movie to make this collision of sensibilities its very subject. Starting off with a romantic cartoon sequence so intentionally cliché-ridden it’d leave Walt himself groaning, it both tweaks and celebrates the Disney legend. There is a princess, called Giselle (Amy Adams), a prince (James Marsden), and an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) so diabolical that she casts Giselle into a place, on the opposite side of the world from a fairy-tale paradise, called Manhattan that’s lively, but not animated.

Immediately she is nearly run down, stolen from, and lost in a seedy part of town, until she’s rescued by a native (Patrick Dempsey). When, by way of explaining her troubles, he says “Welcome to New York,” she misses his intention and replies with a sunny “Thank you!” Because while there is plenty of evil in fairy-tale land, there is no sarcasm. The rest of the story plays out as the prince and the queen’s henchman (Timothy Spall) race to catch up with Giselle, Dempsey’s single dad tries to figure out where she came from, and she tries to adapt. The prince’s chipmunk friend tries to help too, but humorously finds he’s lost his voice. It’s just enough of a story to keep things interesting while not getting in the way of the central fish-out-of-water comic motif. (The script is by screenwriter Bill Kelly, who’s done genre parody before with Blast from the Past.) Adams follows on the promise of her underseen, Oscar-nominated Junebug performance with a role that should give her a much higher profile.

Non-ironic musical centerpieces by Disney vets Alan Mencken and Steven Schwartz (who last collaborated on The Hunchback of Notre Dame) provide the most charming scenes. In the first, Giselle pays seriocomic homage to Snow White as she singingly summons a menagerie, including local cockroaches, to clean up her rescuer’s bachelor pad. She learns from his world, he learns from hers, and an overblown finale (it reminded me of Ghostbusters) sets everything right. Inevitably, the last half is not quite as good as the first, as you’ll have figured where things are headed, and Giselle has had time to adjust to three-dimensional life. It is nice that the princess ideal gets retooled for the post-feminist age; in the real world, being the heroine sometimes means not waiting for Prince Charming to rescue you.

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reviewed 12/01/07

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (***1/4)

Again, England’s most popular wizard has taken over the world’s movie screens. David Yates is the fourth director in the series, but this is the first of the five films not to feature a screenplay by Steve Kloves. The difference isn’t jarring, but the script by Michael Goldenberg (Contact, Peter Pan) encompasses a little less. Depending on your point of view, this means that it’s a more streamlined story that’s easier to follow, or that a lot has been left out.

In an apparent effort to have every living British Oscar nominee appear in the series, Helena Bonham Carter and Imelda Staunton are new to the cast. Carter, to feature more prominently in later films, has a small part as a villain. However, Staunton (Vera Drake) is, other than Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), the only major character in this episode, although newcomer Evanna Lynch has a substantial role as guileless Luna Lovegood, new friend to Harry. Hardly anyone’s left out of the story entirely, but such figures as Draco Malfoy, Harry’s least-favorite fellow student, make only token appearances. In his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry has more significant concerns, not least of which is the threat of being expelled at the outset of the film. Staunton’s Delores Umbridge becomes his newest nemesis after she’s hired as the new teacher of the Dark Arts. She’s also the leader of the naysayers at the Ministry of Magic, who disbelieve Harry’s assertion that evil Lord Valdemort has returned.

Thus the movie’s plot is set up within the first fifteen minutes, and almost everything else has to do with that. If Hogwarts were a Catholic school, Umbridge would be the nun who rapped naughty students on the knuckles, fought the teaching of evolution, and railed against rock and roll. Allied with Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore, Harry tries to rally the opposition in secret. The last movie in the series introduced more personal themes as the young wizards and witches felt the stirs of puberty, but Harry barely has time to kiss his girlfriend from The Goblet of Fire. Umbridge is a straightforwardly evil character who manages to cow even the imperious Professor Snape (Alan Rickman). Why she and the Ministry of Magic so oppose the notion of Valdemort’s return isn’t well explained, but in any case good and evil are clear enough.

Harry himself provides the three-dimensionality. It’s not that he’s a morally ambiguous character. When he frets about losing his sense of right and wrong, you won’t believe it, but you’ll believe that Harry does. Much credit here belongs to Radcliffe, who conveys real, ordinary emotions, like fear and uncertainty. It’s this that sets him apart from all of the action heroes of summer. Faced for the first time with being disbelieved and rejected, he is anxious. Aside from the plot, this installment is Harry becoming an adult.

On the whole, #4 remains my favorite of the films. It’s more fun, and nothing here is as exciting or as visually inspired as its dragon battle. The interplay of the various personalities perhaps get short shrift here as well. But the extended showdown at the end is well-crafted, and some new creatures are introduced. There remains an intelligence that helps the series continue to attract a wide audience, so I’ll be happily anticipating Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2008.

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written 7/16/07

The Covenant (**1/2)

 ? Descendents of those persecuted in the Massachusetts witch trials possess nearly unlimited supernatural powers that they must keep secret and use wisely. Four high school friends called the “Sons of Ipswich” are the present-day carriers of the powers, and the secret. A villain is able to both appear as a ghostly presence and make insects appear on young women’s bodies.

+ There’s one great idea in the movie. The more the young men use their powers, the more they’re eventually weakened and prematurely aged. The insect stuff is creepy.

- Rather than explore how each of the young men struggles to use his power wisely, the script is content to set up a predictable showdown between a noble hero and an evil villain. The plot isn’t too bad, but the individual scenes seemed more designed to show off the admittedly impressive torsos of its male stars than explore the theme in an interesting way. Overall, there are too many stock elements, with loud music and barroom brawls substituting for excitement. As usual, the high schoolers look too old to be high school students. From a horror standpoint, the scares are infrequent.

= **1/2 I think people who like the mythological aspect of vampire movies, for example, may find some appeal in the idea of a secret society.

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