cinderella cartoon movie review

Screen Rant

'cinderella' review.

Cinderella plays it overly-safe in transitioning from cartoon-to-live-action but is sure to entertain Disney's go-to juice box crowd.

Following years of comfort and familial bliss, kind-hearted pre-teen Ella (Lily James) loses her adoring mother (Hayley Atwell) to unexpected illness. In an effort to move past his despair, Ella's father (Ben Chaplin) remarries - forcing his daughter to co-habitate with a calculating stepmother, Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett), as well as a pair of entitled stepsisters (Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger). After wholeheartedly welcoming and accommodating the Tremaines, Ella quickly becomes the focus of her stepmother's cruelty and jealousy - believing she will forever live in Ella's shadow (not to mention the shadow of Ella's deceased mother).

However, when Ella's father is killed during a merchant trip, Lady Tremaine desperately clings to the family's luxurious lifestyle, dismissing the service men and women to save costs - while demanding that Ella take over the chores and maintain the household. Unwilling to abandon her family home, and without anywhere to go, Ella tries to make the best of her situation - until a chance encounter with the kingdom's prince, "Kit" Charming (Richard Madden), causes Ella to dream bigger (with a little help from a fairy godmother).

Cinderella marks Disney's latest cartoon to live-action adaptation - based on a combination of Charles Perrault's 1697 source story and the studio's iconic animated movie from 1950. Whereas Maleficent attempted to explore the story behind Sleeping Beauty's malevolent baddie and Into the Woods played off musical/fairytale tropes (both with mixed results), Disney has taken a much more straightforward approach in Cinderella . Indulging limited variation from the classic hand-drawn version, director Kenneth Branagh ( Thor ) creates a kid-friendly, live-action, retelling of the classic tale with minute character flourishes and enhanced visual spectacle (e.g., CGI magic effects). The result is a harmless, albeit often melodramatic, adaptation that should entertain casual filmgoers (especially young girls) but does little to push the boundaries of Cinderella canon or live-action fantasy cinema.

As indicated, the story endeavors to turn traditionally "evil" characters into slightly more nuanced (read: flawed) antagonists - especially in the case of Stepmother/Lady Tremaine - and, more often than not, Branagh and screenwriter Chris Weitz ( Star Wars: Rogue One ) succeed. Instead of black or white villains and heroes, Cinderella finds a serviceable balance between cartoon spirit and live-action drama. Children and pre-teens will appreciate the film's colorful pallet and effortless humor - but the filmmakers also inject enough modern sensibility to ensure older viewers receive fresh insights and plot beats to chew on.

This isn't to say that Cinderella is a major reinvention or particularly unique origin tale, since Branagh is still checking off key story staples (Cinder-Ella, etc), but for viewers who want to see Disney's cartoon in vibrant live-action, the director delivers - with the added bonus of slightly more subtle character development. To that end, despite a major focus on Cinderella, Branagh's film is Cate Blanchett's movie. The actress brings a chilling realism to Lady Tremaine and, more than any other player in the movie, provides a new way of looking at the timeless character. Tremaine's initial scenes of introduction and development are on-the-nose but once she is firmly rooted as the home's bitter and unyielding matriarch, Branagh and Blanchett produce a vicious iteration of the "wicked Stepmother" without resorting to animated villain impersonation. The part isn't going to win Blanchett any awards but the actress is crucial in elevating Cinderella above an otherwise standard live-action cash grab.

Lily James ( Downton Abbey ) is also likable in the titular role - carrying a convincing performance, whether bantering with Prince Charming or talking to CGI animals. Still, even though the audience is privy to more of Cinderella's story this time, there's only so much that James can do with the role. Weitz includes wordplay and situations that put Cinderella on a more even playing field with her Prince, rather than a naive damsel in need of rescue (from poverty and a wicked stepfamily); yet, since Branagh's movie is a Mouse House production, the title character is still locked into a pretty standard Disney Princess story arc.

Game of Thrones fans will be excited to see Richard Madden back in medieval wears and, much like James, the actor provides a genial take on stock fairy tale hero Prince Charming. That said, while certain moviegoers may be suffering from Helena Bonham Carter fatigue (after becoming a Tim Burton movie fixture), the actress and her Fairy Godmother are easily one of the most welcome aspects of this Cinderella story. Whereas fairies and magic are relatively simple to depict in animated form, weaving fantasy into a live-action tale of romance and child abuse is slightly more difficult. Fortunately, Bonham Carter's Fairy Godmother is a downright amusing bridge between that heightened reality and full-on fantasy - made even more impressive by stellar (albeit cartoonish) visual effects.

Cinderella plays it overly-safe in transitioning from cartoon-to-live-action but is sure to entertain Disney's go-to juice box crowd. Parents with fond memories of the 1950 cartoon telling will find some enjoyable homages along with a slightly more nuanced set of main characters. Nevertheless, while this Cinderella carries a higher level of cinematic sophistication (thanks to solid performances, rich costume design, and colorful CGI animation), Branagh does little to update the core storyline for modern moviegoers, successfully replicating the source material for live-action - both the good and the bad.

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Cinderella runs 112 minutes and is Rated PG for mild thematic elements. Now playing in regular and IMAX theaters.

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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Cinderella (1950) - faithful disney movie of cinderella the story, cinderella: the girl with golden hair.

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Which Cinderella movie is the Cinderellest?

Some adaptions fit the glass slipper better than others

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The Amazon Prime Cinderella movie didn’t go over well with critics , but in part that might be because it has so much competition in its field. There’s a vast pantheon of Cinderella movies — and Cinderella plays and musicals and radio shows and ballets, and basically every sort of adaptation under the sun. Versions of the story go back to ancient China and Greece, but the fairy tale version most American audiences will know is the Charles Perrault version, penned in the 1600s. It’s a timeless fairy tale that’s been retold over and over again, but writer-director Kay Cannon deliberately took big, modern risks with her new take on the tale. A jukebox musical? No villain? Girlboss Cinderella?

“How can I just make it different?” Cannon tells Polygon about how she planned her version. “Because they’ve already done it, and they’ve already done a great job, and I can’t just redo the greatness.”

Modern audiences may look for some edgy new spin on the classics, but with all the pressure to make a different Cinderella story, it’s worth considering which ones stick closest to tradition. Can a Cinderella story still be a standout creative work if the only requirement is following the fairy-tale play-by-play? There are so many iterations of Cinderella out there, but the traditional American and British film adaptations can roughly be divided into five categories: animated, modern update, parody, live-action based on the story, and live-action based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical. To curate our list a little, I’ve selected the top-ranked Letterboxd movie for each of those categories.

Camila Cabello, in a thigh-length floofy dress, sings outdoors in front of a parade of bland smiling people in Amazon’s Cinderella.

The parameters

To figure out how each movie iteration of Cinderella most accurately fits the fairy tale, we need to actually pick the parameters of the fairy tale. Perrault’s version introduced the most common Cinderella plot elements: the fairy godmother, the pumpkin she turns into a carriage, and the glass slipper. We’re evaluating each Cinderella mostly by the parameters of the Perrault story, with an exception for the other popular retelling from the Brothers Grimm. For a refresher:

The heroine: What defines a Cinderella story? The way the downtrodden heroine rises above her station. Her personality will vary, but the rags-to-riches journey is paramount. Possible points here: 2 — 1 for starting at the bottom, 1 for coming out on top.

The prince: Traditionally, he’s a bland victory condition who doesn’t really do anything besides see Cinderella at the ball and fall in love with her. Possible points here: 1 for existing.

The magical help: Not all movie Cinderella s feature magic, particularly the modern-day ones. But some form of wish-granting figure seems like a key part of the story. Possible points here: 1 for some kind of outside help to get Cinderella to the ball!

The villains: The stepmother and stepsisters appear in most versions of the tale. While the Perrault version forgives them, the Grimm version sees them meet a cruel fate. We’re taking both into account both here, since the idea of horrible abusers getting off totally scot-free hasn’t aged well since the 1600s, and it rarely pops up in newer adaptations. Possible points here: 3 — 1 for the stepfamily existing, 1 for them making Cinderella do their chores, and 1 for their fates being made clear.

The ball and all: There is a ball where the Prince is looking for a bride. Cinderella gets a swanky ballgown and a cool method of transportation. And she must get home by midnight, or else. Possible points here: 4 — Pretty straightforward, 1 for the ball, 1 for the gown, 1 for the carriage, and 1 for the curfew!

The identifying item: It may be Perrault’s glass slipper or the Brothers Grimm’s gold one, but either way, it’s an important shoe, or variant thereof. Possible points here: 3 — 1 for an item being left, 1 for it being successfully used to identify Cinderella, and 1 for the stepsisters trying to claim it’s theirs instead. A lot of points here, because the identifying item is paramount to the Cinderella story.

The revelation: Cinderella is found, and she and the Prince get married and live happily ever after! The fairy-tale version makes it pretty abrupt, but a lot of adaptations string it out. Possible points here: 1 for being speedily resolved — perhaps it’s more interesting to introduce some third-act tension, but a pure Cinderella story will give our gal a happily ever after right away.

Overall Cinderating: 15 possible points for a perfect Cinderella . How will our movies do?

5. The Parody Adaptation: Ever After (1998)

Ever After is perhaps the least traditional of all Cinderella movies. In this version, an old French aristocrat recounts the tale of a peasant girl to the Brothers Grimm themselves, setting the tale of Cinderella straight. Ever After fits Cinderella into a historical context, during the Renaissance Era, so it lacks the magical elements of some other retellings. But it makes up for it with more character motivations for both the Cinderella figure and the prince.

The heroine: Danielle de Barbarac (Drew Barrymore) is a young woman forced to play servant in her household after her father’s death. She knows she could run the manor better than her stepmother, who squanders their money and uses servants as surrogates for her own debt. Danielle comes into some money (the prince tosses her a bag of coins while “borrowing” a horse from her property) and disguises herself as a noblewoman to free her servant from the debtors’ prison. When prince sees her stand up to the prison guard, she introduces herself as “Nicole” (her mother’s name), a visiting noblewoman. Though they clash, their relationship eventually blossoms into something romantic, even though it’s built on a lie. By the end, though, they’re married and Danielle has the money she needs. Score: 2/2

The prince: Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) doesn’t want to marry the Spanish princess his parents want him to wed, so he ends up running away. He meets a mysterious visiting noblewoman when returning to the castle, and is so impressed by the way she stands up to some guards that he begins to question his life of privilege. Eventually, she inspires him to proactively make his people’s lives better. Score: 1/1

The magical help: In one of the best and most unexpected twists on the classic story, Cinderella’s fairy godmother is… LEONARDO DA VINCI! Yes, that’s right — artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci takes a liking to Danielle and hooks her up with some sweet angel wings for her dress. Score: 1/1

The villains: Perhaps one of the most outright cruel stepmothers, Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston) is conniving and domineering — she sells off Danielle’s father’s possessions, and schemes for her older daughter to charm the prince so the family can live in luxury. She outright tells Danielle that she never loved her, throws a beloved book from Danielle’s father into the fireplace, and actively sabotages Danielle at the ball. At the end, the king threatens to banish her for lying to royalty, but Danielle figures a more fitting punishment will be for Rodmilla and her oldest daughter to work in the castle for the rest of their lives. (The younger stepsister gets a redemption arc instead.) Score: 3/3

Ball, ballgown, carriage, curfew: There is a ball, and Danielle repurposes her mother’s old gown, but the carriage doesn’t have anything fancy to go along with it, and there is no specific curfew. In fact, Danielle shows up at the ball and within moments, her stepmother reveals that she isn’t the noblewoman she claims to be. Score: 2/4

The identifying item: While Danielle does leave a shoe, and the prince does put it on her at the end after he decides to damn propriety and chase after her, it’s never really used to identify her, since by that point he knows her real identity. Score: 1/3

The revelation: The prince gets pissed when he finds out that Danielle has been lying to him, and he has to do some internal growth before he goes after her — just as she’s been promised in marriage to a lecherous neighbor. It’s purposefully messy, since in real life, this happy ending would not pan out so smoothly. Score : 0/1

Overall Cinderating: 10/15 — Hey, Ever After is the least traditional one! With the historical lens and the interrogation of some of the more fairy-tale-like elements, Ever After was probably destined to rank lowest on the Cinderanking scale. Still, if you’re in the mood for a Cinderella story where Cinderella has motivations and agency, with a love story beyond eyes meeting across the room, then Ever After certainly checks all those boxes. This is a motivated Cinderella who doesn’t feel grating, whose dreams fit the time period, and whose compassion is strong and not spineless.

4. The Modern Adaptation: A Cinderella Story (2004)

Since A Cinderella Story premiered in 2004, there have been five sequels under the “Cinderella Story” name, each starting over with new characters, and each giving the fairy tale a modern twist. Every iteration has grown more extravagant — the prince is a pop star, or the cast is putting on a musical version of Cinderella , or there’s a Christmas theme, or something else.

But the original modern Cinderella story is simple: The prince is a popular boy at school, and the heroine is a down-on-her-luck loser. They have no idea that they’ve been secretly texting each other, after meeting anonymously on a message board for aspiring Princeton students, and they decide to meet up at the school’s Halloween Homecoming dance. Will social convention keep them apart?

The heroine: Sam Montgomery (Hilary Duff) is a straight-A student who not only runs around doing her stepmother’s ridiculous chores, but also picks up extra shifts at her family’s diner. Her dad’s will was never found, so all the money and the diner went to her stepmother by default, and to save up money for Princeton, Sam has to do what she says. Sam’s character growth comes from finding the courage to stand up to her stepmother and move out — and she eventually finds her father’s will, which leaves her everything! Score! Her transformation has less to do with the prince, and more to do with her own self-esteem (and some key legal documentation). Score: 2/2

The prince: Because we’re in early 2000s California and not once upon a time, our prince comes in the form of class president and football star Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), who secretly dreams of going to Princeton and becoming a writer. Score: 1/1

The magical help: There is no magic in this version — but there is the magic of found family and friendship! The staff of the diner comes together to help Sam get to the Halloween Homecoming dance. Rhonda (Regina King), the diner’s manager, even gives Sam an old wedding dress that she just happens to have lying around. Score: 1/1

The villains: Not only does A Cinderella Story have the evil stepmother (Fiona, played magnificently by Jennifer Coolidge) and stepsisters, it also has an evil posse of mean cheerleaders led by Austin’s ex-girlfriend. They also meet their cruel fate in the end, and have to go to work in the diner. Gasp! Score: 3/3

Ball, ballgown, carriage, curfew: In lieu of a ball, we have a Halloween Homecoming. Sam gets a ballgown in the form of an old wedding dress. And she has to get back to the diner by midnight, because that’s when Fiona will return. There is no cool carriage, however, just her friend’s dad’s Mercedes, which doesn’t really undergo any transformation. Score: 3/4

The identifying item: In lieu of a glass slipper, Sam leaves her bedazzled cell phone behind! Very early 2000s chic. Unfortunately, it never really gets used as an identifying item, and her sisters never claim it’s theirs. Score: 1/3

The revelation: The interesting thing about this version of Cinderella is that the entire Cinderella plot happens within the first half of the movie. The remaining half revolves around Sam waffling about whether she should tell Austin that she’s his mystery girl. When that does eventually come to light via Austin’s ex, the story pivots to Austin figuring out what he wants from life. Sam does get a pretty great moment of character growth when she tells Austin she can’t wait around for him, and also tells Fiona that she’s through with being treated like a servant. The ending is happy, but not the speedy resolution of a Cinderella story. Score: 0/1

Overall Cinderating: 11/15 — The first of the modern adaptations is definitely the best. Turning Sam’s ultimate goal to Princeton instead of a prince is a cute modernization, and the fact that she and Austin meet on an internet chat forum makes their secret relationship particularly compelling. Unfortunately, the most frustrating part of this movie is Austin, who must go through the whole “This isn’t my dream, Dad, it’s yours ” character arc. But Sam grows from someone who can’t stand up for herself into someone who takes control of her own destiny.

3. The Live-Action Adaptation: The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

the prince and cinderella meet at the ball

Technically, this live-action version of Cinderella is a musical, but it isn’t based on the classic musical that launched so many copycats, so it counts as a regular adaptation. (Also, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an adaptation of Cinderella without any singing at all.) While The Slipper and the Rose is a Cinderella retelling, it also puts a lot of focus on the political turmoil in Cinderella’s fictional country, which puts pressure on its prince to find a bride. Cinderella’s whole schtick is basically the same — an orphan with a cruel stepmother — but this version also offers up a very long song about rules and propriety in the great nation of Euphemia. Fun!

The heroine: Freshly orphaned as of the start of the movie, Cinderella (Gemma Craven) is banished to the basement of her father’s house and forced to do the stepmother’s menial chores. She meets Prince Edward at the ball and they fall in love. He wishes to marry her, but the king and his advisors warn her that it would put the kingdom at risk, and promise her that they’ll provide for her, but she cannot marry him. She understands what this means for the kingdom, so she graciously agrees — and tells an advisor to tell Edward that she never loved him, so he won’t tear down the kingdom looking for her.

After this, though, the king realizes that she acted exactly like a proper ruler should’ve in this situation, and regrets sending her away. But that’s okay, because the fairy godmother comes around to make it all right, and Cinderella and the prince get married after all. Score: 2/2

The prince: Prince Edward (Richard Chamberlain) wants to get married for true love, but his parents want a political alliance. What’s a poor rich boy to do? Score: 1/1

The magical help: A fun twist with this fairy godmother (Annette Crosbie) is that she’s also helping out a bunch of other folklore figures offscreen — she mentions Snow White, Robin Hood, and Scheherazade, among others. Score: 1/1

The villains: A mean stepmother (Margaret Lockwood) who’s said to have tricked Cinderella’s father into marriage now forces Cinderella to do all the household chores, after firing the rest of the staff. In the end, Cinderella forgives them, before being whisked away to her new life in the palace. Score: 3/3

Ball, ballgown, carriage, curfew: There is a ball to find a bride. Cinderella gets a gorgeous ballgown and a swanky carriage. And she must leave the ball before midnight. Score: 4/4

The identifying item: This one is weird. Cinderella does leave behind a shoe, but the prince kinda keeps it in a weird monument, and then in a fit of frustration, throws it out of his carriage. She finds it in a field and starts dancing with it, and the prince’s best friend spots and recognizes her. Is it because of the shoe, or because of the dancing? Score: 1.5/3

The revelation: After the prince and Cinderella find each other, they still have a political situation to untangle. Everything ends up fine in the end, of course, but there is a long road — and a whole lot of songs! — before that happens. Score: 0/1

Overall Cinderating: 12.5/15 — The Slipper and the Rose would be a highly traditional Cinderella , if not for the political subplot. There is a lot of emphasis on propriety and tradition, which makes the prince declaring his intention to marry a peasant girl all the more dramatic. If it weren’t two and a half hours of sometimes unnecessary songs, it could be a sweet, romantic tale about defying class differences.

2. The Animated Adaptation: Cinderella (1950)

an animated cinderella and the prince dance

The Disney animated version is the archetypal Cinderella that most Americans probably visualize when they think of Cinderella. This movie actually features comparatively little of Cinderella and her prince. It spends a lot of time on mouse hijinks, with a weird side focus on the prince’s father and the kingdom’s archduke.

The heroine: Cinderella is a kindhearted young woman who assumes the best out of everyone, including her awful stepmother, and has a soft spot for small animals. Aside from her animal friends, she is lonely. Her father is dead. By the end of the movie, she’s happily married to the prince and she gets to go live in his fancy castle. Score: 2/2

The prince: Does not even have a name! Or much of a character, really, which is consistent. All we know is that for some reason, he isn’t super eager to get married. Admittedly, Prince Charming gets more character in the Cinderella direct-to-video sequels (which are amazing and add some surprising nuance to all the characters), but as it stands here, he’s boring, and barely in the movie. Score: 1/1

The magical help: In the Disney animated version, the magical help comes in the form of the Fairy Godmother, a kindly, homey woman voiced by Verna Felton. She’s a traditional, classic version of the character, basically an ersatz grandmother. This version also incorporates the “small animal friends” element that the Brothers Grimm story introduced. Score: 1/1

The villains: This version keeps the classic stepmother and stepsisters who order Cinderella around. They don’t get redeemed at the end, but they also don’t suffer a terrible fate. (Unless you check out those sequels — seriously, they’re surprisingly awesome.) Score: 2/3

Ball, ballgown, carriage, curfew: The king throws a ball to help his son find a wife. Cinderella gets a gorgeous ballgown. A pumpkin gets turned into a carriage, and Cinderella’s animals friends become footmen! And she must get home before midnight comes, when all her magic will run out. Check, check, check, and check! Score: 4/4

The identifying item: Sticking with tradition here with a glass slipper! Yes, the stepsisters try it on and can’t make it fit. And yes, it does get used to identify Cinderella — with the fun little plot twist that the one she left behind winds up shattered, but our gal Cindy proves her identity by pulling out the second one. Score: 3/3

The revelation: People tend to give the prince shit for not recognizing the girl he danced with all night, but in his defense… He isn’t actually the one who went out to find her! That’s left to the archduke, which is true to the Perrault version. Once the archduke learns that she’s the mystery girl, she and the prince have a lovely white wedding and ride off in a carriage. Huzzah! Score: 1/1

Overall Cinderating: 14/15 — The animated Disney version almost hits all the marks. It’s the go-to for a reason, but people who haven’t revisited it recently might be surprised at how quirky and mischievous this Cinderella actually is. She makes snarky asides about the stepmother and stepsisters, and definitely has more personality than most people give her credit for. The love story isn’t much beyond eyes-meeting-across-the-room, but sometimes the tried-and-true approach works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

1. The Musical Adaptation: Cinderella (1997)

brandy as cinderella with her prince on their wedding day

A lot of these Cinderella s involve some kind of music, but this one is specifically an adaptation of the 1957 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and Letterboxd’s users actually rank it slightly above the original version. Notable for its colorblind casting, this version of Cinderella — affectionately known as “the Brandy Cinderella” for its lead actress — has an all-star cast, including Brandy, Whoopi Goldberg, Whitney Houston, Bernadette Peters, and Jason Alexander.

The heroine: Cinderella, as played by Brandy, is a sweet but deeply lonely young woman with a big imagination. She meets the prince of her country by chance on the streets at the beginning of the movie, not knowing he’s royalty, and the two hit it off. By the end, they’re in love and married, and Cinderella gets to leave the little basement she was confined to! Score: 2/2

The prince: Christopher (Paolo Montalban) is a hopeless romantic who feels stifled by his station, and would rather wander around in public than go through the pomp and circumstance of being a prince. Score: 1/1

The magical help: A fairy godmother played by Whitney Houston is a dream come true. She also narrates! Score: 1/1

The villains: The stepmother, played by Bernadette Peters, just wants her daughters to win the hand of the prince! She also makes Cinderella do all the chores and carry all their groceries. The step-family’s fate gets a quick, quick resolution at the end — they’re locked out of Cinderella’s royal wedding, and while they reach through the gates, she clearly hasn’t forgiven them yet. Score: 3/3

Ball, ballgown, carriage, curfew: The prince’s parents throw a ball for him to find a suitor. Cinderella gets her dress transformed into a gorgeous blue ballgown. The Fairy Godmother transforms a pumpkin into a golden carriage. And Cinderella must get home before midnight. Score: 4/4

The identifying item: True to tradition, Cinderella leaves behind the glass slipper, and her sisters (and stepmother!) fight over whether they can make it fit and steal the prince’s affections. When the prince sees Cinderella, to his credit he does recognize her, and he repeats what he said during their first meeting, for extra romance points. But he still offers her the shoe to wear, to seal the deal on her identity. Score: 3/3

The revelation: Sure enough, right after the shoe fits, the happy couple kisses and the fairy godmother whirls her wand to clothe them in wedding garb. Huzzah, the wedding is abruptly underway! Very efficient! Very happily ever after! Score: 1/1

Overall Cinderating: 15/15 — Not only does the Brandy Cinderella have a perfect Cinderating, it’s also an enjoyable movie in its own right. The songs (some of which come from the Rodgers and Hammerstein version) are infectiously catchy and don’t drag. The costumes and set design are bright and distinct, and Cinderella and the prince have a connection that goes beyond love at first sight. The side characters are all memorable, with perfect notes of humor to round out the more straightforward romantic arc. Overall, the Brandy Cinderella is the perfect blend of tradition and ingenuity.

Ever After , Cinderella (1950), and Cinderella (1997) are available to stream on Disney Plus. A Cinderella Story is available on Netflix. The Slipper and the Rose is available on YouTube for free .

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Common sense media reviewers.

Sweet fairy-tale classic has bullying, tense chase scenes.

Cinderella Movie Poster: Cinderella holds a glass slipper; smaller images of the Fairy Godmother and other characters are below her

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Some good life lessons: Life is often what you mak

Both positive and negative messages in this classi

Though passive, Cinderella is a kind, generous, an

The main characters are mostly women, including Ci

Opening narration mentions the death of Cinderella

In a brief scene, Cinderella undresses behind a sc

Characters call each other "stupid" and "pompous w

Cinderella is a Disney princess whose brand reache

The king lights a cigar and piles unlit cigars ont

Educational Value

Some good life lessons: Life is often what you make out of it; positivity can be found in even the worst of circumstances.

Positive Messages

Both positive and negative messages in this classic fairy tale. On the positive side: Though it may be difficult to find the good in terrible situations, a positive attitude will provide great strength. Happiness is a choice. You can achieve much more with teamwork than by acting alone. On the downside: The simplistic portrayal of romantic love could mislead young kids about how real love and relationships work. Also, the movie supports the idea that, for women, being passive and depending on men is normal and positive.

Positive Role Models

Though passive, Cinderella is a kind, generous, and forgiving person who demonstrates compassion, empathy, and gratitude. She loves animals and takes care of her undeserving extended family. She keeps faith that her unfortunate situation will get better. On the other hand, her stepmother and sisters are greedy and selfish, displaying great hatred due to jealousy.

Diverse Representations

The main characters are mostly women, including Cinderella and her stepfamily. But the cast is all White, and traditional gender norms are strongly enforced -- a song lyric says to "leave the sewing to the women," women wait to be rescued by a prince, and there's a major focus on external beauty and pretty dresses as a signal of a person's worth. Fat stereotypes, with chubby Gus greedily trying to stack a tower of food that makes him too slow, getting him nearly captured/eaten by a cat -- thin mouse Jaq has to save him.

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Violence & Scariness

Opening narration mentions the death of Cinderella's father. Tense scenes include a sharply clawed cat named Lucifer chasing Gus and other mice friends, Cinderella escaping from the ball pursued by shadowy steeds, and Cinderella's stepfamily cruelly tearing apart her ball gown. Characters bop each other on the head with a flute, the king chases the Grand Duke with a sword, and a cat falls from great heights (no one is visibly hurt). Scenes of bullying, with Cinderella's stepfamily mocking and yelling at her, ordering her around, and, at one point, locking her in her own bedroom.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

In a brief scene, Cinderella undresses behind a screen, and the backs of her naked shoulders are visible. She shares a chaste kiss with her prince. Plenty of focus on romance and marriage.

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Characters call each other "stupid" and "pompous windbag."

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Products & Purchases

Cinderella is a Disney princess whose brand reaches far and wide. Expect to see princess branding on consumer merchandise, food products, etc., as well as in books, websites, and other media.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The king lights a cigar and piles unlit cigars onto the Grand Duke in a celebratory moment. The Grand Duke briefly smokes a cigar.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Cinderella is an animated Disney classic based on the 1697 fairy tale by Charles Perrault. Little kids might be upset by how Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods) is treated by her stepsisters and stepmom, who cruelly mock her, yell at her, order her around, tear her clothes apart, and lock her into her bedroom. Other tense scenes include potentially scary cat-and-mouse chases and an escape from a royal ball pursued by shadowy steeds. Positive messages include the fact that positivity can be found in even the worst of circumstances, the importance of treating others with kindness, and the value of teamwork. But Cinderella is also the quintessential passive heroine rescued by a male character (in this case, the prince), so discussions about her meekness might be in order. Many kids will be familiar with Cinderella and her Disney princess colleagues even before watching any of the movies due to the princesses' ubiquitous appearance on merchandise of every kind. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 26 parent reviews

She's not a damsel in distress!

What's the story.

Charles Perrault's classic fairy tale CINDERELLA is lovingly and imaginatively brought to life in this animated Disney version, also a classic. Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), a sweet, docile, and beautiful girl who's forced to act as a servant for her mean stepmother and stepsisters, goes to the ball with the help of her fairy godmother. But her godmother warns her that the beautiful coach and gown will last only until midnight. Cinderella meets Prince Charming (Mike Douglas) at the ball, and they share a romantic dance. But when the clock strikes midnight, she runs away, leaving behind one of her glass slippers. The prince declares that he'll marry the girl whose foot fits the slipper.

Is It Any Good?

Disney expanded this simple story with vivid and endearing characters, memorable songs, and gorgeously detailed and inventive animation. In one musical number, as the stepsisters squawk their way through their singing lesson in another room, Cinderella sings sweetly as she scrubs the floor, reflected in dozens of soap bubbles. In another delightful number, the fairy godmother sings "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" as she transforms a pumpkin into a coach, the mice into horses, the horse into a coachman, and, finally, Cinderella's rags into a magnificent ballgown. The scene when the Duke (Luis van Rooten) comes looking for the girl whose foot will fit the glass slipper is suspenseful and highly satisfying. But overall, the film's passive heroine, who waits for Prince Charming to save her from an abusive family, may feel less than charming to viewers who want their Disney princess to lead by example.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why many people are troubled by Cinderella meekly accepting her abusive situation and waiting to be rescued. It's worth discussing what some of her alternatives could have been ("If you were Cinderella, would you do what that mean lady told you?") and making sure that kids have some exposure to stories with women and girls who save themselves .

Talk about how women are depicted in the movie. What kinds of stereotypes about appearance and behavior did you notice? For younger kids: Why are the stepsisters ugly and Cinderella pretty? What would the story be like if Cinderella was ugly?

If you had a fairy godmother, what would you like her to do for you? Or would you like to be a fairy godmother? Whose wish would you grant?

How does Cinderella demonstrate compassion , empathy , and gratitude ? How do Cinderella's mice and animal friends show teamwork ? Why are these important character strengths ?

How do you feel about the way that stepfamilies are portrayed here? Why do you think that kind of depiction is common in older fairy tales?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 4, 1950
On DVD or streaming : October 2, 2012
Cast : Eleanor Audley , Ilene Woods , Verna Felton
Directors : Clyde Geronimi , Hamilton Luske , Wilfred Jackson
Studio : Walt Disney Pictures
Genre : Family and Kids
Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Princesses, Fairies, Mermaids, and More , Fairy Tales
Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy , Gratitude , Teamwork
Run time : 74 minutes
MPAA rating : G
MPAA explanation : Nada que pueda ofender a los padres para ser visto por los niños.
Last updated : April 23, 2024

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Entertainment
REVIEW: Disney’s Live-Action <i>Cinderella</i> Rekindles Old Studio Magic

REVIEW: Disney’s Live-Action Cinderella Rekindles Old Studio Magic

T he Cinderella story, codified by Charles Perrault as Cendrillon in 1697, has been a movie staple since the beginning of the medium. That prime cinemagician Georges Méliès conjured up a Cendrillon in 1899 , employing trick photography to turn a rabbit into a footman, rats into coachmen and a pumpkin into a carriage. The role was played in 1914 by Mary Pickford , the movies’ first star actress, and, in a gender-bending switch, by Jerry Lewis in the 1960 CinderFella . Julie Andrews graced Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1957 TV musical version, remade in 1966 with Lesley Ann Warren and in 1997 with Brandy. Drew Barrymore brought feminist spark to Ever After: A Cinderella Story in 1998; Anne Hathaway endured ogres and snakes in the 2006 Ella Enchanted . A few months ago, in Into the Woods , Anna Kendrick’s Cinderella found to her chagrin what happens after “happy ever after.”

But if the Cinderella fable has an owner and chief curator, it’s Walt Disney. Of the hundreds of movie versions, his 1950 animated feature is the most popular and best remembered. All these decades later, the studio expects only good luck from the Friday-the-13th release of a lavish live-action version directed by Kenneth Branagh, adapted by Chris Weitz and starring Lily James as Cinderella and Cate Blanchett as the stepmother Lady Tremaine. Most of the industry touts are forecasting at least a $60-million opening in North American theaters.

The Disney fascination with the sooty heroine, the Prince and the glass slipper goes back to Walt’s earlier days as a cartoon producer. He was just a kid when he made his first Cinderella as a Laugh-O-Gram in his Kanas City studio. The movie premiered on Dec. 6, 1922, the day after Walt turned 21 — the same age as his invaluable pal Ub Iwerks, who animated and directed the movie (and, later, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, “Steamboat Willie”). Running a brisk 7 min. 23 sec., Disney’s first Cinderella is the old fable transplanted to the Jazz Age, with physical comedy trumping dreamy romance.

The plucky orphan, “whose only friend was a cat,” gets bossed around by “two lazy and homely step sisters” — but no wicked stepmother. The Prince, “a wonderful fellow” whose only friend is his little white dog, is first shown hunting bears by shooting them in the butt (early Disney is a trove of ass gags). The Prince schedules a ball, for “Friday the 13th,” but Cinderella’s stepsisters say she can’t go. A crone-like Fairy Godmother shows up to give the girl a snazzy flapper gown and change a trash can (not a pumpkin) into a Model T; the black cat is her chauffeur. It’s love at first sight for the Prince; they dance the night away to the strains of a Paul Whiteman-like jazz band. At midnight Cinderella flees, leaving her glass slipper. The chase is on; the Prince finds her and embraces her, as his dog does her cat. “And they lived happily ever after.”

The 1950 version was the studio’s first full animated feature since Bambi eight years earlier, and it rescued the Mouse House from near-bankruptcy. Cherished for the hit songs “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Bibidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” it is also the least faithful to its source. About half of the 1hr. 14min. movie is devoted to the shenanigans of the heroine’s closest companions, a quartet of talking mice, and their slapstick battles with Lady Tremaine’s obnoxious cat Lucifer. The feline role reversal from the 1922 cartoon may have been Disney’s attempt to mimic the Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons, which won five Oscars for Best Animated Short between 1943 and 1948 — the very prize Walt had previously monopolized with 10 wins between 1932 and 1942.

The Prince is virtually AWOL in the 1950 movie; he doesn’t appear until two-thirds of the way through and speaks only a few words. (In the duet “So This Is Love,” his singing voice is supplied by future talk-show host Mike Douglas.) He is mainly a pawn in the machinations of his temperamental father the King and a fussy Grand Duke. The big drama is again with the critters: Will the mice Jaq and Gus will be able to lug a key up to the attic that imprisons Cinderella? Whatever its appeal to many generations of children, this is one Disney feature that today looks coarse and ill-conceived.

The latest version proves that third time’s the charm, with a Cinderella that is not revisionist but plain old visionist. In the recent Disney tradition of live-action film spun off from classic cartoon features — after Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 2010 and, last year, the Angelina Jolie Maleficent , from Sleeping Beauty — this Cinderella plays it straight and pretty. Make that gorgeous: the settings by Dante Ferretti and the gowns by Sandy Powell (each with three Oscar wins) turn the film into a fantasy land that is its own theme park. Even the attic to which James’s Ella is consigned by Blanchett’s Lady T. is less a Tower of Terror than an airy aerie.

First, though, the movie has to kill off Ella’s loving parents, with the ruthless efficiency that Disney perfected in such early features as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi . Ella’s mother (Hayley Atwell) succumbs to the sort of genteel movie disease that deprives her of life but not of luster, instructing the child to “Have courage and be kind.” Father (Ben Chaplin), hoping to give Ella another mother and two new sisters her own age, marries the widow Tremaine, then dies while on a business trip. In short order, we see that Tremaine is no lady; she spits out her stepdaughter’s name as a cruel, cackling curse.

Tremaine has demoted Ella to charwoman in the service of the Lady’s sullen, stupid daughters Anastasia (Holiday Grainger) and Drizella (Sophie McShera). When the King (Derek Jacobi) invites every maiden to a ball at which the Prince (Richard Madden, who played Robb Stark on Game of Thrones ) will choose his bride, Ella is left at home, finding transportation as well as transformation courtesy of her fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter). Ella leaves a glass slipper fit for a princess bride. Prince meets commoner, and the rest is fantasy.

Less a remake of the 1950 movie than a sensible correction, the Branagh Cinderella does without the old hit tunes or new any ones. Though it often seems ready to burst into song, it doesn’t, instead relying on Patrick Doyle’s sumptuous, nonstop score. It also reduces the mice, now CGI critters, to minor characters; Cinderella chats with them but they don’t talk back, content to await their roles as pumpkin-coach horses when the fairy godmother, in Bonham Carter’s mildly campy approximation, materializes. The movie’s only nod to modernity is in the casting of Afro-Brit Nonso Anozie (Xaro Xhoan Daxos on Game of Thrones ) as the Prince’s stalwart Captain of the Guards.

Like Jolie in Maleficent , Blanchett gets top billing here. She earns it by radiating a hauteur that chills as it amuses; the performance is grand without skirting parody. The movie doesn’t rehabilitate Lady T., as Maleficent did for its sorceress. (In Disney’s 1950s Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty , both the Stepmother and Maleficent were voiced by Eleanor Audley.) But it does allow its star to sizzle as Cate the Blanch-ificent.

Blanchett’s Tremaine is the prisoner of her personality, parrying Cinderella’s aghast “How could you?” with a vitriolic and poignant “How could I not?” Behind her sadism is the sad awareness that her stepchild has all the graces her daughters lack. Her only blessing is that she finds an ally in the venal Grand Duke (Stellan Skarsgård), as adept as palace intrigue as Lady T. is at domestic iniquity. Perhaps these meanies should star in a sour sequel: Sinned- or Chagrined-erella .

The wicked stepmother gets a suitable antagonist in James, who plays Lady Rose on Downton Abbey as a figure of whim and rebellion: flirting with a black jazzman, marrying a Jewish lord. Her blond hair framing subversive dark eyebrows, James creates a Cinderella that is both classic and modern, the sculptor of her destiny.

This Cinderella needn’t wait for the royal ball to dazzle the Prince; she meets him earlier — as an equal, on horseback in the forest, with neither knowing the other’s identity — and persuades him to spare a stag he was hunting. He knows instantly he must marry the girl, who has been true to her mother’s last words: she is courageous and kind.

As expansive and well-scrubbed as any of the floors the heroine is obliged to scour, this PG-rated treat rekindles the old Disney magic in a ballroom dance of two strangers becoming lovers. It mixes romance and a measure of droll wit without ever evoking the dread phrase “rom-c0m.” Doing it the old way has paid off for the studio. Nearly a century after that black-and-white cartoon short, and 65 years after a “classic” animated feature that missed the mark, Disney finally got Cinderella right — for now and, happily, ever after.

See Cinderella Through the Years

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This time around I was more aware of the power of the full-animation techniques, and I appreciated Disney's policy of using unfamiliar voices for the dubbing, instead of the studio's guess-that-voice derbys of recent years. But in other ways the movie still worked for me just as it had the first time. When those little mice bust a gut trying to drag that key up hundreds of stairs in order to free Cinderella, I don't care how many Kubrick pictures you've seen, it's still exciting.

You doubtless remember the original story. You may not - as I did not - remember how much the Disney studio expanded and supplemented it. Disney's most valuable and original contribution to the "Cinderella" tale was the addition of dozens of animals to the story. The screen fairly bursts with little birds helping Cinderella to dress, little mice helping her to plot, a dog leaping to the rescue, and an evil cat named Lucifer chasing the birds, pouncing on the mice, spitting at the dog and doing its best to come between Cinderella and Prince Charming.

These animals serve much the same function as the Seven Dwarfs (and assorted birds and forest animals) did in " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ." They provide a chorus, moral support, additional characters to flesh out a thin story and a kaleidoscope of movement on the screen. When one of the little birds crept under Cinderella's pillow to awaken her in the morning, it didn't matter that I was aware of the shameless manipulation of the animators; I grinned anyway.

Using the traditional techniques of full animation, the Disney artists provided each animal with a unique flavor and personality. What they also did (as Richard Shickel observed in The Disney Version) was shamelessly wag the buttocks of all of the animals as a way of making them seem even livelier; a Disney quadruped has its center of gravity somewhere below its navel and its pivot point right beneath the wallet. With all that action going on, no wonder they never wore pants.

If there is an obvious difference between "Cinderella" and such predecessors as " Pinocchio " and "Snow White," it's in the general smoothing-out of the character's appearances. Snow White herself looked fairly bland, but the other characters in the first decade of Disney animation had a lot of personality in their faces. They were allowed to look odd. "Cinderella" seems to come right out of its time, the bland postwar 1950s. Cinderella looks like the Draw Me girl, Prince Charming has all of the charm of a department store dummy and even the wicked stepsisters seem petulant rather than evil. Only the old king, his aide and a few of the mice look bright enough to split a ticket.

Yet the movie works. There are dozens of little dramas played out for a minute or two by the mice, who must outsmart the cat and alert the dog. There are touching moments involving the king, who wants an heir more than anything and looks on glumly as his son rejects all of the women in the kingdom - except for one. And then there is that thrilling montage at the end, while the stepsisters desperately try to get the glass slipper to fit and the mice sneak the key to Cinderella. You've got to hand it to her: The kid still has life. Another seven years, anyway.

Footnote: I hate to sound like a scold, but this is the second Disney animated classic that has been stretched into "wide-screen" format, with a resulting loss of some 25 percent of the original image. The studio's argument: Few theaters are equipped these days to show films in the classic 4-to-3 ratio, and Disney would rather carefully supervise its own wide-format pan-and-scan version than allow a projectionist to despoil the image. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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4K Blu-Ray Review: Walt Disney’s “Cinderella” Finally Gets the Restoration it Deserves

Walt Disney’s Cinderella saved the studio when it was released in 1950, and it has remained one of the company’s most beloved classics ever since. And yet, for nearly twenty years, the version of the film made available on DVD, Blu-Ray, Digital, and Disney+ has used a controversial restoration. At long last, wrongs are righted with a 4K restoration that will please cinephiles everywhere with the new Disney100 branded 4K release, available now from Disney Movie Club and getting a wider release this fall.

Adapted from Charles Perrault’s version of the timeless fairytale, Cinderella tells the story of a girl who lives as a servant in her childhood home, working for her wicked stepmother and mean stepsisters. Through her oppression, Cinderella maintains her kindness, befriending mice who live in the house. So when her dreams of attending the ball are dashed, her Fairy Godmother appears to give her the night of her dreams. Through her journey, Cinderella will learn that her philosophy on life is correct – that “no matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.”

The 2005 restoration that has been in use ever since was criticized for a number of reasons. Chief among them, it relied heavily on automatic Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) techniques that obliterated film grain, scrubbing away animation details in the process. Frame-by-frame comparisons with previous laserdisc releases displayed the extent of the issues, with the film literally losing some of its magic by way of the magic dust created by the Fairy Godmother. In other words, Walt Disney’s favorite animation sequence of his studio’s history (Cinderella’s dress transformation) had been scrubbed of some of its luster. In addition, brightness and contrast were dialed way up, with unfaithful colors to the filmmaker's original intent.

The new 4K remaster represents Cinderella in a faithful way to how it appeared 73 years ago. There is minimal film grain present, but it’s nonetheless perceptible. Colors feel accurate to film stills and marketing material of the initial release. And line art that was obliterated in the previous version is back. In other words, this is the best the film has looked since it was first released, a literal dream come true for film purists and Disney fans. And best of all, this release replicates this restoration across all included versions, meaning the restoration is available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital in addition to 4K Ultra-HD.

Bonus Features

In Walt’s Words: The Envisioning of Cinderella (1:24:25) – Transcripts from story meetings with Walt Disney and his story team are brought to life through voice actors in this feature-length visual commentary that includes concept art, storyboards, pencil animation, behind-the-scenes photos, and script excerpts stylistically juxtaposed against the film as it plays. It includes many legends of Disney Animation, including Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, and Ham Luske. (Note: This feature uses the 2005 restoration and has not been updated)
Try This Trivia on for Size (4:48) – Stars of the Disney Channel series Sydney to the Max Ruth Righi and Ava Kolker reveal some fun facts about the film in an upbeat kid-friendly style.
Diane Disney Miller Introduction (1:16) – Filmed for the Diamond Edition from the Walt Disney Family Museum, Walt Disney’s daughter introduces the film and promotes her San Francisco museum.
From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella (38:27) – This Platinum Edition documentary features Disney Historians, luminaries, and archival animator interviews discussing the making of the film and its historical significance in the Disney story. The film clips in this documentary predate the controversial 2005 restoration and feature colors that are more familiar to fans who grew up with the film in the 20th century.
The Cinderella That Almost Was (12:34) – Don Hahn reveals some storyboards and production artwork from previous attempts Disney made to adapt this story to animation.
The Magic of the Glass Slipper: A Cinderella Story (10:03) – Christian Louboutin creates his take on glass slippers in this short film that includes animated mice helping him find inspiration.
The Real Fairy Godmother (11:50) – Art Director Ken O’Connor based the Fairy Godmother on his wife, Mary Alice O’Connor, who was recognized throughout her community for her volunteer work and helpful spirit.
Alternate Opening Sequence (1:13) – Storyboards for a different way the film could’ve opened.
Storyboard to Film Comparison: Opening Sequence (6:49) – A laserdisc bonus feature that shows how the storyboards inspired the final film and also reveals a few intended differences for the “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” sequence.
From Walt’s Table: A Tribute to the Nine Old Men (22:09) – Joel Siegel hosts this Platinum Edition bonus feature about Walt Disney’s legendary team of mentor animators through a roundtable at the Tam O’Shanter restaurant with animators and directors who were mentored by them.
The Art of Mary Blair (14:58) – Walt Disney’s favorite artist is explored in this short feature that leads into her work on Cinderella .
Behind the Magic: A New Disney Princess Fantasyland (8:17) – Ginnifer Goodwyn hosts a tour of the “upcoming” New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom park at Walt Disney World, a promotional piece that was more relevant in 2012 on the Diamond Edition release and one that has little to do with Cinderella .
1922 Laugh-O-Grams: Cinderella (7:24) – Walt Disney’s first version of Cinderella was made in Kansas City and was set in the 1920s as a modern fairytale.
Excerpt from The Mickey Mouse Club with Helen Stanley (3:55) – The live-action reference model for Cinderella meets the Mouseketeers and recreates “The Work Song” sequence.
Village Store Excerpt (2:35) – Ilene Woods promotes the upcoming film with a radio appearance shortly after being cast in 1948 by singing “When You Wish Upon a Star.”
Gulf Oil Presents (5:25) – Ilene Woods recounts her casting process for Cinderella in a 1950 radio interview.
Scouting the Stars (4:25) – Another promotional visit by Ilene Woods
1950 Original Release Trailer (0:24)
1965 Reissue Trailer (2:21)
1973 Reissue Trailer (1:26)
1981 Reissue Trailer (1:32)
1987 Reissue Trailer #1 (1:57)
1987 Reissue Trailer #2 (1:25)

Typically, a hand-drawn animated film’s jump in quality from Blu-Ray to 4K isn’t this spectacular. But with the 2005 restoration being handled so poorly, there’s really no competition. The artistry of Walt Disney Animation Studios during its silver age is fully restored, and you can essentially toss out previous disc and digital releases of the film now that this version is here. Since this set includes the same restoration on multiple mediums, the 4K disc only marginally improves upon the Blu-Ray transfer, primarily where color is concerned. In the dress transformation sequence, for example, the black background feels marginally richer in 4K, but there isn’t necessarily an added level of detail. The DVD disc also includes the new transfer, although it is plagued by compression artifacts that seem shockingly poor even by the medium’s earliest standards.

Curiously, the 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track used on the previous Walt Disney Signature Collection release (2019) has been replaced. It’s not a great loss, as a film originally released in mono doesn’t have the source files to make it sound that much richer with an extra two speakers. As it stands, the English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix on both the 4K and Blu-Ray discs does a fine job of allowing elements of the score to travel to the rear channels, while most of the action is set in the three front channels. The 4K disc also includes a 2.0 Descriptive Audio track, plus French, Spanish, German, and Japanese 5.1. The included Blu-Ray disc features English 5.1, 2.0, and Descriptive Audio, plus French and Spanish 5.1.

Packaging & Design

This 3-disc set from Disney Movie Club is housed in a standard black 4K case with a hinged disc holder. Only the 4K disc contains artwork (of Cinderella just after her dress transformation). A slipcover is included in the initial pressing, which features a pearlescent sheene and adds glitter accents to the magic dust around Cinderella.

The main menu across all three discs is reused from the Walt Disney Signature Collection release, featuring scenes from the film set inside the glass slipper (the clips are from the 2005 restoration). There aren’t any trailers.

Final Thoughts

For hand-drawn animated films, the jump from Blu-Ray to 4K typically only yields marginal boosts in detail and color. But since the previous disc releases of Cinderella had such a bad restoration, this one feels like a tremendous upgrade. This “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” from Disney Movie Club honors one of the company’s most significant films as part of the Disney 100 celebration. And while a wider release is planned (August 1st as a Best Buy exclusive SteelBook, October 17th for a general release ), Disney Movie Club has branded this version as their own exclusive, likely meaning that the DVD disc will be omitted from the wide release. If you’re a big fan of Disney animation, upgrading your copy of Cinderella to one that shows the film’s actual level of artistry seems like a no-brainer.

(Please note this article contains affiliate links. Your purchase will support LaughingPlace by providing us a small commission, but will not affect your pricing or user experience. Thank you.)

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Cinderella Reviews

It’s a musical without good songs. It’s a comedy that isn’t funny. It’s a romance that lacks spark. The biggest casualty is Cabello who has some noticeable charm and even a little swagger.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 17, 2022

If the trailer and a mouse-costumed James Corden’s aggressive pelvic thrusting at Los Angeles drivers weren’t red flags, let’s assure you: Camila Cabello’s Cinderella is banana-ooh-na-nas.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 8, 2022

Is it bad? Absolutely. But it's also delirious camp. (There's also something very entertaining about how bad it is).

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 9, 2022

This new take on a classic tale is a worthy addition to the long list of Cinderella adaptations.

Full Review | Apr 5, 2022

Cabello acquits herself well in her first leading role, though Menzel almost steals the movie outright.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 13, 2022

Handsomely mounted and filled with energy, Cinderella is desperate to be a crowd-pleaser as it aspires to Frozen and Greatest Showman levels of theatrical drama. Unfortunately, it misses many notes,

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 3, 2022

If that viral video of James Corden humping on a guys car wasnt enough to scare you away from this movie, allow my words to confirm it: its really, really bad. Also, who decided to let Pierce Brosnan sing again? What did we do to deserve that?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Feb 28, 2022

The new version of Cinderella doesn't take itself too seriously, so you probably shouldn't take it all that seriously either. Perhaps that's what elevates the movie from just your run-of-the-mill Disney adaptation.

Full Review | Feb 20, 2022

Cinderella looked terrible on paper and sadly is terrible in its execution not even being so bad it is fun.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Feb 12, 2022

Amazon Studios' Cinderella is far from boring. It is, in fact, endearingly stupid in a way that's very easy to nitpick and mock.

Full Review | Dec 27, 2021

The thing is, despite how utterly silly the entire enterprise was, I had a grand old time watching, because it just wasn't serious enough to merit any involved critique.

Full Review | Nov 6, 2021

Kay Cannon brings her ability to combine upbeat songs with female characters who are warm, flawed and inspiring to this new classic. I had a blast, even though Camila Cabello's acting couldn't match the depth of the rest of the cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 7 | Oct 30, 2021

Cinderella is not inspired by creativity but by the merely utilitarian with a leaden sense of narrative. Not much here is magical and very little sparks wonder.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2021

Cabello's performance is a delight and I enjoyed the incorporation of modern music. I enjoyed the feminist premise. My three daughters enjoyed it, the demographic this movie is aimed towards.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 9, 2021

An adaptation of Cinderella that seems to actively take issue with the source material. There's some cute moments here and there, but overal a misfire that underutilizes it's most talented cast members.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Sep 24, 2021

Instead, go to Disney+ and watch the live action Cinderella (amazing costumes), animated classic, or Ever After, which is the superior update.

Full Review | Sep 24, 2021

Cinderella offers a bland reimagining of a classic tale that spends more time pandering to than empowering its viewers.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 20, 2021

Throw in some dodgy editing choices, clunky dialogue, and wedged in songs that don't fit, and the whole thing falls flat.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2021

The nastiness of Cinderella's stepmom and stepsisters has been toned down. All three are more pouty than perilous. Thank goodness [Idina] Menzel has talent to spare and knows how to give banality a boost.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2021

A joyful, mostly enjoyable revision, although if you dislike "woke" entertainment, you're likely to hate it

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 17, 2021

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Pop Culture

Camila Cabello's 'Cinderella' Finds Its Modern Form As A Musical Ode To Girlbosses

Linda Holmes

Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Cabello in Cinderella . Christopher Raphael/Amazon Studios hide caption

Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Cabello in Cinderella .

What happens when you throw a ton of great talent at a listless idea?

The new Cinderella that's out on Amazon this weekend is not a good idea. The concept apparently originated with James Corden , our sweatiest late-night host (comedically, not literally) and one of the stars of Cats , a movie that has done for hallucinogens what Oreos did for milk.

Loosely stated, the concept is that Cinderella is now what we might call a girlboss, played by pop diva Camila Cabello. She does have a stepmother, and she does have stepsisters, and she does live in the basement. But rather than being stuck doing menial chores, she just hangs out down there and designs dresses, which makes her life probably one that a lot of crafty young women would envy, except for the fact that she has mice for friends (they are voiced by Corden, Romesh Ranganathan, and James Acaster). She dreams of her own dressmaking empire, while singing and longing and so forth.

Her prince is named Robert (...sure) and is played by Nicholas Galitzine, who has chiseled cheekbones, an earring, and often a tiny upturned thumb of hair just above his forehead. Your brain will try to tell you he has probably been making Disney Channel musicals since he was 14, but it's lying to you. There's a good chance he's not familiar to you; he just seems like the weighted average of all the guys who could play a prep school villain on a procedural or the detective's son who turns out to be the real murderer in a prestige drama. Robert is an ambivalent prince whose sister Gwen (a woefully underdeveloped character given the weight the story tries to place on her) is better-qualified for leadership than he is, and while he is constantly pursued by veritable scads of women, he only has eyes for this young woman he saw in town.

With a song in your heart

There is also music. This is a musical Cinderella , but it is not the musical Cinderella you know either from the Disney cartoon or from the Rodgers & Hammerstein show in which both Julie Andrews and Brandy have starred. Instead, it's primarily a pop jukebox musical, using extant songs within scenes the same way you'd use original songs.

The jukebox musical — or the library musical, I suppose you could call it, since "jukebox musical" now seems mostly reserved for single-artist shows like Mamma Mia! -- is a long and honorable tradition. No less a standard than Singin' In The Rain used mostly existing songs from other musicals; the song "Singin' In The Rain" wasn't even written for it. So the fact that the songs here, while they include a couple of originals, are mostly things like "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree and the Jennifer Lopez hit "Let's Get Loud" isn't as weird as it might seem.

It is a little weird that the film opens with a montage of the townspeople, who look kind of generally old-timey as you might see in a fairy-tale kingdom, performing their daily tasks and singing "Rhythm Nation." (This also means that if you watch with the captions on, you will see that at one point, the mice are "squeaking 'Rhythm Nation.'") More than once, I found myself watching all this and thinking ... why does this exist? There are plenty of versions of Cinderella , and some have music. Why do we need one that starts with "Rhythm Nation"?

People who need people

Despite the fact that this movie doesn't make a very good case on a conceptual level for its existence, what it has in spades is talent. The director and writer is Kay Cannon, who also made Pitch Perfect . She's genuinely exactly the right person to head up this kind of effort, and her comedy skills shine in little moments like the choir that starts to chime in during an argument between Robert and his father, played by Pierce Brosnan. There are absolutely solid pieces of comedy business here, and the sillier they get, the better they work (she also wrote for 30 Rock ).

Camila Cabello and Billy Porter get sparkly in Cinderella . Kerry Brown/Amazon Studios hide caption

Camila Cabello and Billy Porter get sparkly in Cinderella .

They've also stacked the deck with people who are very beloved by fandoms of various sizes: Cabello, Billy Porter (playing the fabulous godparent or "Fab G"), Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver, and I suppose James Corden. I also watched with bated breath to see whether Pierce Brosnan would "sing" again as he did in Mamma Mia! , and suffice it to say Cannon's solution to this did not disappoint. Billy Porter does a few minutes of high-octane Billy Porter-ing, Idina Menzel hits some high notes, and Minnie Driver remains one of my absolute favorite comic actresses. They've put a lot of people to work here, and they all do just fine.

What does disappoint is the watery effort to make this story feel satisfyingly feminist. I wrote about Cinderella as an enduring idea back in 2015, and one of the few things that's consistent across the many retellings of it is that it's a story about status: a lower-status person has to persuade a higher-status person to literally recognize her as the person he loves when she is not in disguise as someone who shares his status. Here, there's an effort to modernize, which is always a potentially interesting way to approach a folk tale. But the way they go about it is a blunt shortcut, where instead of anyone on any side of the equation thinking that it matters that he's a prince and she's a commoner, the issue is that she doesn't want the constricting position of princess, because she wants to sell dresses.

In other words, the stakes are no longer really part of Cinderella folklore where the question is the viability of love across status divides; they are part of Hallmark-movie folklore where a woman wants to fall in love and also have a successful small business. That's not to say the updating has no charm: There are some nice grace notes — that, again, I credit to Cannon's comedy talent — in which trappings like carrying a woman in your arms are affectionately teased through a sort of feminist-ish lens. And Cabello does just fine, even if the character is sometimes sort of a YouTube makeup tutorial/daily affirmation in human form.

A Girl, A Shoe, A Prince: The Endlessly Evolving Cinderella

But it's crucial to note, any time you see something promoted as a thing you haven't seen anyone try before (Amazon presents this as a "bold new take"), that those claims are often exaggerated. In fact, Cinderella , like any folk tale, does nothing but adapt to its time; even the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical doesn't draw Cinderella as passively as some old versions do. And the 1998 movie Ever After , starring Drew Barrymore — which is my personal favorite film adaptation — tries to bend the notions of passivity and rescue that infect old tellings, without abandoning the central themes of status and acceptance. That film plays with the relationships with the stepmother and stepsisters in some of the same ways this one does, except without everyone singing, you know, "Rhythm Nation."

Cannon also wrote and directed Blockers , a film that's much more successful as a bending of a familiar story (there, the idea of teenagers trying to lose their virginity) in a way that really did seem feminist and fresh. As I noted in 2015, though, it's hard to write a Cinderella story at all if you don't build in the idea of a person who might reject someone they fall in love with based on status. Without that element, without that risk, it's perhaps got one less trap to fall into, but I'm not sure it's Cinderella . Because Cinderella isn't about mice or dances or fireplaces; it's about an elemental fear: This person would never love me if they knew who I was.

The problem with an adaptation that wanders this far afield is that it becomes difficult to gracefully incorporate basic elements that people expect to see. Why, for instance, does Cinderella need to run away from the ball at midnight? With the story done this way, where her identity is not ever really a secret to the prince, what is she doing? The answer seems to be that she runs from the ball because it's Cinderella , but even a movie where magic helps you walk in high heels needs more internal logic than that.

It's hard to describe something with this many nice touches as bad; it will make a nice weekend watch for a lot of people, I think. But it also feels uncomfortably algorithmic, an exercise that shows that if you don't start with much of a foundation, there's only so much fancy dress you can drape all over it.

Cast & crew
User reviews

Pierce Brosnan, Minnie Driver, Idina Menzel, Billy Porter, Camila Cabello, and Nicholas Galitzine in Cinderella (2021)

A modern movie musical with a bold take on the classic fairy tale. Our ambitious heroine has big dreams and with the help of her fab Godmother, she perseveres to make them come true. A modern movie musical with a bold take on the classic fairy tale. Our ambitious heroine has big dreams and with the help of her fab Godmother, she perseveres to make them come true. A modern movie musical with a bold take on the classic fairy tale. Our ambitious heroine has big dreams and with the help of her fab Godmother, she perseveres to make them come true.

Camila Cabello
Billy Porter
Nicholas Galitzine
2K User reviews
106 Critic reviews
41 Metascore
1 win & 6 nominations

Fabulous Godmother

Prince Robert

Queen Beatrice

Princess Gwen

Thomas Cecil

Count Wilbur
Princess Laura
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick previously designed the costumes for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997).
Goofs While there are some aspects of the film that would fit into the 19th century, the show isn't set in a specific time frame. The costumes range from medieval styles through 17th, 18th, and even 1950s styles.

Queen Beatrice : [about King Rowan] Oh, no, he's going to sing.

Crazy credits The Fabulous Godmother says one more thing after the end credits.
Connections Featured in The Late Late Show with James Corden: Camila Cabello/Rufus Du Sol (2021)
Soundtracks Rhythm Nation/You Gotta Be Written by Janet Jackson , Jimmy Jam (as James Harris III), Terry Lewis , Des'ree (as Des'ree Annette Weekes) and Ashley Ingram Performed by Camila Cabello , Idina Menzel , Charlotte Spencer and Maddie Baillio

User reviews 2K

Sep 25, 2021
How long is Cinderella? Powered by Alexa
Will this version of Cinderella take place in current times?
Didn't Disney already do a live-action remake just 5-6 years ago, or why is this coming so soon after that last one?
Since this is categorised as a musical, is it using the same musical numbers as in Disney's animated 1950's version, or is there going to be new songs written specifically for this version?
September 3, 2021 (United States)
United States
United Kingdom
Official site
Lọ Lem Thời Đại
Waddesdon Manor, Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, England, UK (Palace Interior and exterior)
Columbia Pictures
DMG Entertainment
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 52 minutes
Dolby Digital
Dolby Atmos