Another remake of a remake of a remake of a...

Introduction

Cinderella is a fairy tale about the unjust oppression being overcome with recognition and a triumphant reward, generally the hand of true love. Despite the most popular version of this tale by Charles Parrault (1697) being set during a time of mythical maidens and fair princes, the oldest known version of this classic folk tale was recorded in the 1st Century BC by Greek historian Strabo. So it's been around a while, teaching valuable lessons to its audiences throughout time and been reinterpreted countless times. And so it is again…

Mary (Selena Gomez) is the 'stepdaughter' of aging music icon Dominique (Jane Lynch). Mary's mother was one of Dominique's dancers earlier in her career and after her death, Dominique took her in - but only for her own selfish reasons rather than the goodness of her heart. Mary is effectively the maid in the grand house inhibited by Dominique and her two 'ugly' daughters Bree (Katharine Isabelle) and Britt (Emily Perkins); the siblings being typical 90210 airheads despite actually living in 90211 apparently. Mary is supported by best friend and design guru Tami (Jessica Parker Kennedy), whilst the two 'ugly' sisters are in a mini-clique led by the scheming Natalia (Nicole LaPlaca).



The heartthrob of this tale is local boy made good Joey Parker (Drew Seeley), a singing superstar who has been badly over-managed since an early age by his parents. With a younger and much more hip manager in Dustin (Marcus T.Paulk), Joey is looking to regain his mojo and rediscover his love of singing and dancing. To do this, he plans to go back to school but also run a competition to find a dancer for his next video.

Mary is a natural dancer whose goal is to gain an audition at the New York School of Performing Arts, but who ends up dancing with Joey at the masked ball and winning his heart before rushing away just before midnight. Thus begins Joey's search for his true love with the only clue she left; a discarded Zune mp3 player.

Visual/Audio

Picture and sound much as you would expect from a modern film. It's a music-based soundtrack so enough to give your amp a minor workout, but it's a kid's film so nothing too strenuous.

Plenty of subtitles too…

Extras

Another Cinderella Story: Just That Girl Music Video

Mary: Dancing Ever After

Mary: The Cinderella of the Story

A Pop Star Prince: Joey Barker

The Diva Dominique

Tami's Fantastic Fashions

Another Cinderella Story: Sing-A-Long

Aimed at a young female audience, none of these extras are too demanding; the longest is five and a half minutes so nothing that will tax the average attention span of a teenager. One word of caution though, the Sing-A-Long extra showcases three songs from the film with karaoke-style subtitles, but only the portions of these films that are in the film. A cheap and cheerful way to include this kind of extra, but a little too cheap in my view.

Overall

I wasn't really expecting to enjoy this that much, but to my surprise I found myself engaged despite the sheer predictability of it all. The main reason I suspect is down to the ensemble cast who really play it for muted laughs rather than either taking it too seriously or trying to be too funny. The nearest you've got to an overblown character is Jane Lynch's aging Madonna-like (I'm assuming) Dominique, a diva with a much overblown opinion of herself.

The chemistry between the leads and co-leads is quite good for a film of this calibre. I've sat through numerous teen programmes thanks to my teenage daughter and generally find it all a bit forced, but this was a little different for a change. Gomez and Seeley are pretty impressive as the leads, Gomez in particular with a rather natural style. Kennedy and Paulk play the predictable support characters well and have their own little chemistry thing going on.

The bad guys, or girls in this case, played by Isabelle, Perkins and LaPlaca are your usual airhead baddies - more schemers than out-and-out evil doers, and of course they are shown up and get their eventual comeuppance when the poor downtrodden heroine triumphs.



The film is extremely predictable, I guessed about 90% of the plot before the films was even out of its first five minutes but then:

I'm not the target demographic the relevant audience this is aimed at generally like predictability it's still quite an enjoyable ride, even for me
One of the best laughs in this film is when our handsome hero tries to find the girl of his dreams by announcing his quest over the school tannoy. As it's a modern interpretation of the fairy tale, he doesn't have glass slippers to slip on a million smelly feet; instead he has an mp3 player (and clearly not just any one, but a Zune. Ooh, product placement - can I have one too now?) so he states that he will know the girl of his dreams when she confirms the four most played songs on her playlist. The highlight of this is the Goth girl who is only seen in this segment, reeling off the name of four songs by The Cure. Clearly you have to see to find it funny, but it was - trust me on this.

Certainly not the best film I've ever seen but nowhere near the worst. Anyone with a young daughter, certainly before they've grown out of the pink and fluffy/doll stage, could do worse than pick this up.