Once again, I fell prey to the lure of a well-made preview. The new musical version of Cinderella from Amazon Studios looked like it would be great fun from the two-minute trailer I saw online. Billy Porter as the fairy godmother? A village of people singing and dancing to "Rhythm Natio"”? Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver as the King and Queen? (And speaking of Queen, "Somebody to Love" is sung by the Prince and his buddies.) Yes please, I thought. But no, all hopes were dashed upon seeing the other 110 minutes of the movie. Director and writer Kay Cannon had notable ambitions in creating a female empowerment pop-musical fairy tale film, and a couple of sequences shine, but it fails to come together to make a satisfying whole.
In this iteration of the old standard tale, Cinderella (singer Camila Cabello) is an aspiring dress designer whose dreams are stymied by her wicked stepmother (Idina Menzel) who insists she stay in the basement, smeared by cinders. Meanwhile, the Prince (Nicholas Galitzine) is being pressured by his parents to pick a bride--ideally a good political choice to keep the kingdom on its feet--but he is still into partying with his bros and is in no hurry to settle down. His folks decide to host a ball, invite the whole village, and make the Prince pick a wife. A Fairy Godmother (Billy Porter, who is the best thing about the movie but who is only in it for about ten minutes) transforms Cinderella into… and so on. The biggest change in the story, and one I wholeheartedly applaud, is that Cinderella's real desire isn't for a man, but for a dress business, which could be enabled not by the Prince but by a wealthy village woman.
The problem here isn't the basic story or dialogue, it's pretty much everything else. Mostly, the songs here are pre-existing pop songs, and while I enjoy seeing familiar music pop up in unusual settings, here the songs seem to be shoehorned in, sometimes to make up for lack of plot or character development. It's kind of thrilling to see Janet Jackson’s "Rhythm Nation" as a village-wide dance number, but sadly, the lyrics mean absolutely nothing in context. These townsfolk are not fighting injustice or trying to improve their society, or joining together in any way. They're just doing a nicely choreographed production number--that is, by the way, poorly and unimaginatively shot, as are most of the big numbers in the movie. I could pick apart every other production number, but you get the drift. There are a couple of new songs written for the movie, but they aren't especially memorable.
As for the performances, there’s not a lot to say. Most everyone is OK and not much more. Camila Cabello is a popular singer, but her rough voice didn't fit the songs here. For me, her acting was better than her singing, but she fails to make the character much different from any other Cinderella figure of film or TV. Nicholas Galitzine is pleasant looking at the prince, but not especially hunky, despite the horde of women who sing the Salt-N-Pepa song "Whatta Man" at him. Better are the adults: Idina Menzel gets to sing "Material Girl" and makes the wicked stepmother a bit more than the usual stereotype. Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver are quite good as the King and Queen. Most of the singing sounds overly processed, but I guess that’s the trend these days. Overall, a nice idea for an update, but not one I can recommend.
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