Cenicienta 2 - Un sueño hecho realidad

Cinderella 2 isn't terrible, it just isn't great either. There were some parts I enjoyed like the last story with Anastasia or the Prince finally having more of a role. I love the new voices and the music was great. But otherwise this movie is pretty dull compared to other sequels. The third movie is the best and does it's story wonderfully.

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.

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.

Of course the animation is really bad, and it's not a deep movie, but at least the writers put some thought into the story and didn't just go with the standard. (Cinderella and her still-unnamed Prince have a daughter who falls in love with a peasant, and they have to convince the king that she should be able to marry him and not be forced to marry someone of royalty. Can anyone say 'Aladdin'? Ugh.) This movie is made of three separate stories instead of just one long yawn factory like some others I can think of (Cough. Hunchback 2. Return to Neverland. Cough.) so there is a lot more opportunity for variation and character interplay. They even involve a dour governess named Prudence (very nice to see a black-clad miser in a Disney film who is stodgy and stuffy instead of thoroughly evil.) and give one of the stepsisters a story of her own, and do something with Lucifer except having him be the (you guessed it) black, evil cat who does little but chase the mice. Even Jaques gets a place in the spotlight, and there are happy endings all around as everyone falls in love. No.. not a deep movie, but it isn't boring, either. There is enough happening here to hold your interest, and that's saying a lot for a Disney sequel these days. The only real failing is that they selected quite possibly the most "edgy" and downright obnoxious Hip Hoppish singer to warble some songs that would have sounded fine otherwise.. Some of the tunes and lyrics are actually quite good, but there's so much "groove" and "attitude" going on that any charm is completely lost -- And if that's how they sound *now*, you can imagine how much this music is going to grate on the ears in a decade or so, when Hip Hop has long since gone the way of disco and vinyl and VHS... Seriously, can't anybody just SING anymore? I will be really happy when the people at Disney realize that lavishing modern sound on their (ahem) "masterpieces".. only hastens their descent into the post-modern doldrums of such films as 'Oliver & Company' and 'Aladdin'. I'm sure I'm not the first to cringe upon hearing Cinderella say 'EEYew' with all the pouty, adolescent inflection of 2001's cohort of sexed-up, belly-baring Britney wannabes.

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.