La bella addormentata

I, as with many other fairy tales, loved the story as a child and still like them very much at 20. Sleeping Beauty along with Cinderella has always been a favourite. And this is a charming Golden Films version, it may not compare with Disney's and I found Golden Films' versions of Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Christmas Elves superior, but I do prefer it over Jetlag's quite good version. The character designs are sometimes stiff and I do find Phillip a rather bland character here. However there is enough colour and fluency in the backgrounds to make it at least visually appealing, and the music is simply beautiful. The writing is simple but not overly so and not childish, while the story has the charm and heart of the fairytale and doesn't feel rushed. I feel also that unlike Wizard of Oz, which has a story that I think could be done justice properly only as a feature-length, that 30 minutes was a perfect length to tell the story, and there were a couple of additions that proved to be very sweet. The characters are fine on the whole, the princess is beautiful and not too fey that she's dull, the fairies are sweet and characterful in their personalities(though when I was referring to the character designs I was especially talking about them) and Ursula is suitably threatening. The narration adds much to the storybook feel also, and the voice acting is decent. Overall, I liked it. 8/10 Bethany Cox