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The kingdom of Fairytaleland is a place of happy endings. It’s a place where good guys always win and bad guys always lose in the end. Where damsels in distress are always rescued. And the prince always saves the day. And it’s all because of the wizard (George Carlin), whose job is to keep the scales of good and evil balanced just so. But when the wizard goes on vacation, leaving his responsibilities to his two assistants, Munk (Wallace Shawn) and Mambo (Andy Dick), things don’t exactly go as planned.
Take, for instance, the story of Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar), also known as Cinderella—the fair maiden who’s stuck slaving for her evil stepmother, Frieda (Sigourney Weaver). Ella’s supposed to marry the prince (Patrick Warburton) and live happily ever after—much to the dismay of her friend, Rick (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), the prince’s servant. But when Frieda finds out about Ella’s happy ending, she decides to do whatever she can to stop it from happening—so she battles Munk and Mambo, takes over the wizard’s staff, and starts messing with the scales of good and evil. In no time, the kingdom is over-run by witches and trolls and bad guys galore. Ella is convinced that the only person who can save the day is the bumbling, egotistical prince—but Rick thinks she’s overlooking another possible (and perfectly happy) ending to her story.
Happily N’Ever After tries to give a popular old story a fun, Shrek-like, satirical twist—tries being the key word here. Unfortunately, Shrek has already been done (twice, actually—with a third on the way). So who really wants to see it rehashed? While there are a few imaginative aspects to the movie, there are just a few too many similarities to the same old ogre-tale—and it’s not nearly as satirically funny as I’d hoped it would be. Though it does have its moments—personally, I was a big fan of the baby-stealing Rumplestiltskin (Michael McShane)—there just aren’t nearly enough of them. Mostly, the characters are either cliché (the preening idiot of a handsome prince) or irritating (the moping servant boy who really needs to get over himself)—or both. Even Ella, who’s supposed to be the story’s heroine, isn’t all that interesting. And that could explain why a girl in the row ahead of me spent most of the movie text-messaging her friends—and why, by the end, several of the kids were running around the front of the theater. And if a bunch of kids lose interest in a seriously short (75-minute) animated movie, you know the movie’s got a problem.
While the idea is a good one—and while it’s good for a few laughs—Happily N’Ever After just doesn’t come together to be the funny fairytale it aims to be. In fact, it could come dangerously close to turning you into a Sleeping Beauty.
