A Nova Cinderela

This was a great movie! Hillary Duff is great for this part! All of the other cast are great! This movie was funny and entertaining throughout the movie! I have not seen too many movies with Duff, but I would love to see more! I found the part where the step mother and the step sisters had to work cleaning the diner to be hysterical! I liked laughed through the film! That actress that played Fionna, I forgot her name but I have not seen her that much. She is funny. I loved the line where one of the mean girls in school said, "What can I get that has no carbs, no fat and no calories, (or something like that) and she says, "Water!" She looked very pretty in her costume at the party! Overall, I loved the film!

I will admit I like Hilary Duff. She's perky and giggly, and certainly sweet. So when I bought this movie, I was expecting a light and fluffy movie.

The movie was light and fluffy, but it was also endearing as well. Duff shined in this role; definitely her best one yet. She played Cinderella (aka Sam) perfectly and with such innocence and poise. Chad Michael Murray was the surprise of the movie, however, playing Prince Charming (aka Austin) with all the charm and charisma you'd expect from one.

The music was an added touch to this cutesy film, every scene memorable in it's own way (particularily at the end during the football game).

Jennifer Coolidge's character was the only disappointment in the movie. Fiona could have had so much more depth to her character in this film and the way she was portrayed clashed with the overall feeling of the movie.

Who knew that if you substituted a glass slipper with a cell phone you'd get such a wonderfully sweet re-make? Definitely recommended to those that can watch a movie with girl-y fluff.

I did fear that I would hate A Cinderella Story. I honestly it would be predictable and contrived, problems I have had with some of the Mary Kate and Ashley movies. Actually, while by no means perfect, but as an update of the fairytale this exceeded my expectations. I have heard and read complaints that the film is very unoriginal. I don't think it is. While I like films to be original, I don't like it being too original. The film does follow the skeletal premise of the timeless fairytale, that I grew up reading, as well as loving the Disney film and Ever After with Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston.

A Cinderella Story does have its flaws. There are a lot of over-familiar elements in the script, and the plot falls into the oft-danger of being predictable. There are one or two pacing problems and the odd clichéd character, and while there are some mildly funny moments with the stepsisters especially(ie. the scene in the swimming pool) there is nothing uproariously funny. I liked the idea of the two lead characters being internet pals, somewhat reminded me of You've Got Mail.

On the plus side, there are some things I really did like about this film. While they had some in general superficial material to work with, the entire acting ensemble did more than adequately. Hilary Duff does a good job in the lead as Sam, she is definitely not the best actress ever, far from it, but she is better than Miley Cyrus. Plus I thought she looks lovely here. While he looks like 5 years older, Chad Michael Murray is an appealing love interest. And Jennifer Coolidge makes the most out of the role of the wicked stepmother here. The camera work is decent, and the sets are colourful. And I have to mention Sam's dress, it was gorgeous! The film's finish is satisfying too, and the soundtrack is cool.

Overall, one may dismiss this film as a silly piece of predictable fluff. While it is definitely not perfect, it is watchable, and good undemanding fun for teenagers. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I have said before and I will confess again, I am just a sucker for the Disney cutesy live action movies. Princess Diaries, Freaky Friday, Parent Trap. They are predictable but always fun and light hearted and humorous. It's a recipe for film that has worked for Disney far longer than any of us care to think about. In saying that I am not a Hillary Duff fan, although she seems multi talented, her characters never change and her scope as an actress will seemingly be limited to Lizzie McGuire for the rest of her career.

A Cinderella Story is exactly what one would expect. It's a retelling of the old classic fairy tale with the modern day twist but director Mark Rosman, who has really nothing to claim fame to does a terrific job at truly modernizing the story without coming across as stupid or blatantly obvious. Duff plays Sam, a girl who's father is tragically taken from her after marrying a wicked woman played perfectly hideously by Jennifer Coolidge, you can't help but despise her in this role. She is accompanied by her two daughters, Brianna and Gabriella who are spoiled little brats that like to make Sam's life a living hell. Sam's "wicked stepmother" takes over Sam's father's pride of joy, his diner and turns into her own little cash cow while keeping her late husband's staff on to torture them. She always makes Sam grind her fingers to the bone in between school classes working in the diner. Sam has an online boyfriend whom she's never met, there is a school dance in which he wants to meet her, he turns out to be Mr. Popular, she sneaks out having to be back at the diner for twelve before her stepmother finds out. The rest of the story unfolds as you might expect.

As with all live action cutesy Disney type films, the cast shines...yes even Duff. She's too goody for her own good which works in this case as you feel sorry for her. Her surrogate family, the diner staff are delightful and funny and they help us root for the underdog. Rhonda played by Regina King, who has been some great family movies ie: Mighty Joe Young, and Daddy Day Care is perfect as Sam's protector and Fairy Godmother you might say?? And Chad Michael Murray is great as her Saviour and Prince Charming. The best part of this film is the way the retelling is handled. It's not done in such a way that you are blatantly watching another rehashing of an old fairy tale but rather handled delicately and done in such a modern way that you think to yourself "Hey that's almost like Cinderella." You actually feel for each character the way you are supposed to feel, and you want to see each and every one get what they deserve and incidentally they all do which leaves you satisfied and happy with the film.

This movie won't rake in any critical acclaim but it's fun and you'll enjoy it if you like this style of movie. I suggest checking it out!! 7/10

I haven't looked at other reviews of A Cinderella Story yet, but especially because it's a Hilary Duff film, I'd expect there to be a lot of scathing comments. That's because Hilary Duff is, or was, at least, popular with tweens and teens, and lots of slightly older folks have a tendency to hate commercial or popular stuff just because it's commercial or popular. Of course, they find other ways to justify their effectively institutional hatred of this stuff, and I'd guess that the main complaint would be the clichéd and predictable nature of the material here.

And that's true. A Cinderella Story is clichéd and predictable, but that's not a great reason to dislike it. It is a Cinderella story, after all--it tells you right there in the title--retooled as a contemporary Los Angeles-area high school romance-comedy. We all know the Cinderella story fairly well. And any film fan at least old enough to almost be through with high school is surely familiar with the clichés of rom-coms and high school films. Most of us could write the basics of A Cinderella Story's plot without even seeing the film's trailer. So for adults, at least, A Cinderella Story is going to be successful or not dependent on how well it hikes its well-trodden path.

For me, the best material was the more traditional Cinderella-based stuff. Jennifer Coolidge (voluptuously) fills the role of the wicked stepmother. I like Coolidge a lot. She has tremendous charisma and performs her infamous, quirky sarcastic act here with verve. I also like Duff. The two actresses playing Duff's stepsisters were new to me, but just as charismatic as Coolidge. Director Mark Rosman quotes some of the cartoonish visual gags of Disney's Cinderella (1950) more than I expected, and it works amazingly well. It's one element that pushes the film into a welcomed, absurd-surreal territory.

What didn't work as well for me was the material when Rosman and credited writer Leigh Dunlap forgot about doing a pumped up remake of Cinderella. Too much of A Cinderella Story deals with Sam's (Duff) budding cyber-romance, her typical high school problems and the caricatured, stereotypical high school cliques. It's not that these other segments are bad, exactly, but they just don't have the spark or humor that the Cinderella material has, and especially for something like the cliques, we've seen this tens of times before. These scenes would be right at home if we edited them into any of those other films or television shows--sometimes I had to remind myself that I wasn't watching, say, a Cordelia scene from the first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).

So A Cinderella Story has a bit of a split personality--as a funny and wacky remake of Cinderella and as a far less humorous, pretty generic "getting through adolescence and finding yourself" message film. That After-School-Special-styled message may be a worthy one, but intercut with a great version of Cinderella, it doesn't quite fit, even though Rosman does finally start to find a unique and admirable groove while still alternating modes towards the end of the film.