Review of Happily N`ever After

Introduction

Happily N`Ever After is a 2007 computer-animated film based on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. In common with Carry-On films, it enjoys a whole host of subtitles too including `The Future looks Grimm` , `Fairytale endings aren`t what they used to be…` and `Don`t Let Your Hair Down. Don`t Go To The Ball. Don`t Visit Grandma `., all of which give a fairly good indication of of the style of this irreverent take on classic fairy tales.

It was originally released with spectacularly bad-timing just after Christmas last year in January 2007, and immediately took a critical panning. Too close to Shrek and Hoodwinked for comfort, the actual truth was that this had been on the drawing board for a while before either of those, before it got a radical re-working to make it less dark and more child friendly.

Unfortunately, with computer animated features, the dollar investment is very apparent, and despite imaginative visualisation and framing, the rendering here lacks the finesse and detail of Shrek or Pixar outings.

Featuring some heavy-weight voices (Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sigourney Weaver, George Carlin amongst others) this wryly humorous movie turns fairy-tale tradition completely on its head - though naturally provides a happy ending after all.

In a magical land a Wizard (George Carlin) controls all of the fairy tales and maintains a careful balance of good and evil, ensuring that each story always plays out in a predictable way - with a happy ending. That`s all fine and good except that he decides to take a golfing break in Scotland, leaving his assistants, Munk and Mambo, at the helm.

Ella (short for Cinderella) is horribly mistreated by her stepmother and step-sisters, though she dreams of meeting the handsome Prince at a nearby Palace. Rick, the palace dishwasher, is a cool looking cat who has the hots for Ella and it is he who delivers an invite to a ball at the palace.

But from here on in, the typical Cinderella plot starts to go off the rails. The Prince turns out to be a bumptious and vain fool (very much like Gaston in Disney`s `Beauty and the Beast`) and worse still, Freida (the evil stepmother) manages to find her way into the Wizard`s lair, causing Munk and Mambo to `tip the scales`, sending a whole raft of fairytales off in the wrong direction. Hilariously, we see Rapunzal throw down her hair and get pulled out of the window ; a prince kiss sleeping beauty only to fall into a sleep himself, and a mother failing to guess Rumpelstiltskin`s name, forcing her to hand over her baby to him.

Naturally, this also means that the Cinderella story starts to go wrong too.
Frieda chases Munk and Mambo away and calls in an army of trolls, witches, and giants to her castle. Luckily Ella finds out and escapes to the woods, where she meets Munk and Mambo and they manage to escape to the Seven Dwarves home.

But soon they are under attack until Rick arrives on a broom that he has managed to steal from Frieda, saving the day and helping shoot down the ice queen and her army.

Frieda decides to go after them herself, capturing Ella and locking her up in the palace and torturing her.

Rick, Munk, and Mambo slip into Frieda`s castle and try to save the day.

I don`t want to spoil the ending here though I think it`s fair to say that all ends happily EVER after, after all!

Video

This is a nice clean digital transfer of a fairly plain looking animation. There is little room for detail in the images here, though there are some satisfying blocks of vibrant colour throughout.

As is common in budget animation, there are one or two clumsy joins when cutting together separately rendered pieces, though in the main it flows well.

Picture wise; think very good quality video game, spiritually and physically closer to those `Barbie` animations than to Shrek.

Audio

The English DD5.1. soundtrack is full of depth and immensely satisfying. I had read a review of this disc that claimed that despite it being listed as DD5.1 it was only a DD2.1 rendering. That`s not the case with this check disc so maybe it was an error that has been corrected.

Features

Wow! A lot of extras here, though as is so often the case, none that are particularly remarkable. There`s a pleasant enough audio commentary from Irish director Paul Bolger, talking about getting involved in the project in 2001 and seeing it through a re-write and a re-think to get it where it was ready for release.

There are also a number of featurettes on the disc that feature Bolger in person and which are actually very informative rather than sycophantic or glitzy-spin like so many of these things. These are broken into four sections: Development of the Characters, Posing out the action, Playing out the part, and Colour, lights and effects. All run for between 6 - 10 minutes.There are also two ridiculously short Deleted Scenes - Fairy Godmother (53s) and I Love Her (31s), which stretches the definition of `scene`. A complete waste of time and effort! There`s also the obligatory Alternate Ending (2m16s).

Finally, under the heading `Department of Fairy Tale Security` are five primitive games which will only appeal to children under the target age for the film. They are: `Choose Your Own Fairy Tale Ending` ; `Munk`s Fairy Tale Fix` where you guess the ending of classic fairy tales; `Munk And Mambo`s Magical Match`, where you answer some simple questions and you get a `match for the ball` (I ended up with the ancient Fairy Godmother!); `Mambo`s Memory Mix Up` where you look at an image which then gets changed and you have to click on the thing that`s changed to move on. And finally `Create Your Own Witch`s Broom` where you select a seat, handle bars and so before being presented with what it will look like. As in common with all DVD games, as dull as dishwater!

Conclusion

I`m guessing that the luke-warm reception that this animated feature had on release earlier this year has a lot to do with unreal expectations. We`ve been really spoilt for top-notch animations of late, and despite the fact that this is credited to one of the Producers who brought us Shrek, it`s clearly a less satisfying job.

But that doesn`t mean that it`s a complete dud. To the contrary, once you`ve got over the fact that the animation is much less imaginative and sophisticated than Shrek or Pixar`s finest, there is still much to enjoy.

In common with `Shrek` and the more recent `Hoodwinked`, it seems to take perverse pleasure in turning fairytale tradition on its head, and its drippingly wry Jewish humour may occasionally tickle your funny bone. These two quotes are pretty typical of the dialogue.

QUOTE 1: Frieda: Forty flights of stairs in heels? This had better be good...

QUOTE 2: Munk: We`re not tipping the scales of good and evil so YOU can be entertained!
Mambo: What if we made the seven dwarves, seven feet TALL? And...
Munk: No way!
Mambo: What about making Rapunzel go bald...
Munk: [interrupts, grabs remote] NO! Forget it.
[walks away]
Mambo: Couldn`t we just give her split ends? Or dandruff? Or a mullet! Or SOMETHING!

Alright, the film ain`t Shrek but it does have its moments! It`s full of great `good versus evil` adventure, as well as some very satisfying kick-ass action and romance too.

On another note, I don`t know how this film will be marketed but I think really young children will find this re-visit of bedtime fairy tales confusing, but for knowing 8 year olds and older, this will provide a very satisfying and amusing 90 minutes whilst never quite rising to the dizzy heights of the first two Shrek movies or any of the Pixar outings.