Cenicienta 2 - Un sueño hecho realidad

There is barely a plot or story in Cinderella II. No great crisis or danger to be resolved, just syrup. Though my toddler enjoys it there are many other children's DVDs that I enjoy watching with her but not this one. She loves it when we watch her DVDs with her but Cinderella II makes it difficult for me to be able to. If you don't already have Snow White, Cinderella, Mulan, Pinocchio, the Lion King, Pocahantas, The Prince of Egypt, The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan, buy any of these before wasting your money on this effort to part you of yours. This weak effort is a stark contrast to the earlier fairy tell productions of Disney that were under Walt's direction. It makes one appreciate his effort to make a great production for entertainment for the whole family and not just pumping something out to make money. I'll give it a generous 4 out of 10 points only because my girl enjoys it.

So, I really didn't want to watch this. I work at a video store so I get to watch everything before everybody else. Usually that's a good thing. Cinderella 2 is just one pointless movie. One little plot point after another that simply joins characters back together again. Don't ruin the first by watching this one. Walt had the idea. No sequels. Too bad he's still not around to enforce that idea.

Although released over half a century after Disney's version of "Cinderella", this is a sequel to the popular animated feature from 1950. I don't recall ever watching that particular Disney cartoon from start to finish until just a few months ago, even though I do remember seeing some of it as a kid. I didn't find that film to be the masterpiece many people consider it to be, but thought it was pretty good. I know I've pointed this out before with other films of this kind, but since this is yet another direct-to-video sequel from Disney (some of these are sequels to recent films from the company, while others are sequels to ones produced by Walt Disney himself decades earlier, and this is one of the latter), its mediocrity is not surprising.

The Fairy Godmother helps the mice make a new book about Cinderella, featuring three stories taking place after the events of the first one. The first of these stories is "Aim to Please", in which Cinderella and Prince Charming return from their honeymoon. The prince is then forced to leave with his father, and while they are away, a woman named Prudence is left to teach Cinderella how to be a princess and put her in charge of an upcoming banquet, but the new princess does not like what she learns. In the second story, "Tall Tail", Jaq the mouse feels he can't be of any help to Cinderella due to his small size and decides he would rather be a human, but this may not work out as he expected. Finally, in "An Uncommon Romance", Cinderella's stepsister, Anastasia, falls in love with a baker, but he is a commoner, so her mother and sister Drizella do not approve. Cinderella begins to help her stepsister try to win this baker's heart, but the two of them don't exactly see eye to eye on how to do this.

One thing these direct-to-video Disney sequels are good at is having inferior comic relief to their theatrical predecessors, and "Cinderella II: Dreams Come True" is no exception. I didn't even care much for the mice in the original movie, but still found some laugh-out-loud moments. However, I found none of those in this MUCH later sequel. In fact, I hardly even smiled while watching this one. The three stories are not among the most boring I've ever seen in a movie, but they're usually not too interesting. I'm sure they are entertaining to many kids, but are perhaps a little too simple to really have much entertainment value for adult viewers. If each of these segments featured lots of good humour in them to make viewers laugh, it could have made a major difference, but that's unfortunately nowhere near the case. The four songs sung by Brooke Allison don't help with the entertainment value, either. Some good traditional animation is featured here, with some nice, colourful backgrounds, but this is certainly not enough to make up for the significant problems this sequel suffers from.

Having previously seen "Belle's Magical World", the second direct-to-video release featuring the characters from Disney's hit 1991 adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast", this "Cinderella" sequel naturally reminded me of that film. Both feature three different short stories (the DVD version of the former features four, but I've only seen the VHS version and don't intend to watch that third installment in the "Beauty and the Beast" trilogy again in ANY format), all of which have life lessons in them. Since I watched "Cinderella II: Dreams Come True" about three years after seeing Disney's third "Beauty and the Beast" release, comparing them may not be as easy, but at least I can say this "Cinderella" film has better animation, and I didn't find the stories to be QUITE as dull as the ones in the other mentioned direct-to-video release, so I guess this one is slightly superior. However, that's not saying much.

We didn't need a sequel to Cinderella, yet here it is. I was interested to see it because I wanted to know how Disney could handle this sequel. They dealt with it by creating three short stories, one of which doesn't include Cinderella. Surprisingly these stories work, they're not perfect by all means, but it does continue the life of Cinderella. It's not one to watch over and over, once is enough, but if you don't even like thinking about what Disney could have done to Cinderella's life after Prince Charming, don't bother to even touch this one. In reality though, it may just have been better for Disney to leave Cinderella alone although small kids may enjoy it, the movie lacks the "old Disney" feel that makes these movies special.

When I first saw the huge life-size cardboard standup promoting Cinderella II in my local Hollywood Video, I was positively shocked and dismayed as to how far Disney has fallen in its attempt to strip-mine the memory of its classics in order to make an extra buck. Watching the video itself did nothing to enlighten my preconceived notions. While the animation and voice-acting is top-notch, the story suffers as the film tries to describe Cinderella's "happily ever after" life in the castle. Since any real conflict could possibly hurt that "happy" image, they appoint Cinderella head of the Ministry of Parties and allow her to demonstrate her unbounded optimism through several heavily contrived situations that mostly involve jokes about clumsy, amorous fat women (fat-acceptance advocates, watch out!) and mice being mindlessly chased by palace cats (who in real life would probably have servants to chase mice for them!) The mice are the real stars of this film, recreating their feature film roles pretty well and tying the loose, disjointed narratives together. Yet, one gets the feeling that the mice are the only characters in this film and the others are just there to give the mice something to do. For a movie that purports to teach us how to be ourselves and feel good about ourselves, one would be shocked at the gross lack of characterization in the film. Even compared to other Disney movies, the characters never go beyond their surface stereotypes and develop any hidden motives. Why does Jaq so singlemindedly want to pursue Cinderella? Why does the Fairy Godmother linger around the castle like a freeloading roommate? Why does Anastasia fall in love with the incredibly uninteresting baker? Yet one shouldn't picket the movie too seriously, after all, it's clear from the packaging and DVD extras ("A composer is a person who writes the music to a movie") that this film was intended solely for the kiddie crowd. With that in mind, it's blissfully entertaining. It's a great film if you are under 6 or so, but if you were raised on more captivating Disney fare such as the great musical features and the Disney Afternoon of the early 90's, it's rather disappointing.