Watched this entirely for the reason that Dakota Fanning has a kind of Fred-Savage-in-The-Princess-Bride part in the proceedings (she and her brother can’t sleep, daddy finds a funky looking old storybook in the corner and proceeds to read … uhm-hmm … soooo necessary …)

The whole thing feels like a Woolworths’ pick-n-mix or something. The setting is literally timeless (the evil stepmother shacks up with a troll and sits watching TV half the movie while the costumes range from the usual period-type fairytale stuff to 30th century gay disco), and the attempts to put in jokes “for the grownups to enjoy” are either way too racey or restricted entirely to reality TV humour. Dakota gets the funniest line, towards the end, when three of the characters enter the ‘real world’ kids’ bedroom to retrieve the storybook – huddled under her bedsheets, she says, “I see fairytale people.” The fact that this made me laugh out loud really speaks volumes not only about how much I love Dakota but also of how tedious the other 89 minutes are …

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 at 10:56 pm in 2 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.