Cinderella is the classic fairytale. Who better than Disney to create a live-action movie? But did the movie live up to the hype? According to most critics, you don’t have to worry – your childhood won’t be ruined by this new incarnation. Not everyone absolutely loved it, but overall it was quite well received.
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Cinderella Reviews
The New York Daily News says it’s a film the whole family will enjoy.
“”Cinderella,” Disney’s live-action retelling of its cornerstone princess tale, is an often sparkling movie that never disrespects the kid audience even as it wins over the parents. We may have just had a wry Cinderella in “Into the Woods,” but in director Kenneth Branagh’s version the poor girl meant for bigger things is classic and courageous at the same time.”
The New York Post thinks the story is outdated.
“In the end, do we still need “Cinderella”? It’s a classic, but I imagine (or maybe just hope) the lessons girls get here will seem laughably retro: If you’re very mild-mannered and don’t rock the boat, good things will just magically come to you! It’s cool to have an impossibly small waist! There’s nothing better in the world than a great-looking, rich man who wants to marry you!”
Los Angeles Times was a fan of the fairytale.
“As pure of heart as its heroine, “Cinderella” floats across the screen like a gossamer confection, full of elegant beauty and quiet grace. No sly asides, no double entendres and nary a hint of modern-day gender politics dilute this poetically, if not prophetically, imagined storybook fable embraced in toto by director Kenneth Branagh. If you can content yourself with a little enchantment and little enlightenment, “Cinderella” succeeds.”
The Washington Post thinks they tried too hard and fell flat.
“Branagh tries his best to infuse “Cinderella” with energy, from having his characters compulsively swirl and spin in otherwise static scenes to the palace intrigue and power plays that take the place of conventional romance. He even tries to inject some humor (yes, that’s Rob Brydon in a cameo role, and Helena Bonham Carter hiding behind a hideous pair of prosthetic teeth), but to no avail. For all its gossamer, gauze, filigree and refinement, “Cinderella” drags when it should skip as lightly as its title character when she’s late getting home from the ball.”
The Boston Globe says the story has class that’s missing from other films nowadays (lookin’ at you, “Fifty Shades”)
“It’s Disney itself that’s currently working the most interesting changes on the classic princess formula. In 2013’s “Frozen,” the prince turned out to be a rat and the focus was on the bonds and seething rivalries of sisters — the movie was not only a box office bonanza but an intensely powerful psychodrama for a generation of girls. And “Cinderella” — the new, live-action “Cinderella,” that is — is an attempt by the Mouse House to revive one of Walt’s oldest fairy-tale adaptations with care and class and modernity and timelessness.”
