Happily N’Ever After finally arrives, looking like a cheapo knock-off of DreamWorks’ ogre.
Happily N'Ever After (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:76
Fresh:3
Rotten:73
Average Rating:3.1/10
Consensus: Happily N'Ever After has none of the moxy, edge, or postmodern wit of the other fairy-tales-gone-haywire CG movie it so blatantly rips off.
Theatrical Release:Jan 5, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $15,519,841
Synopsis: Set in Fairy Tale Land, this comedy features the heroes and villains of stories from Rumplestiltskin to Sleeping Beauty. The job of the wizard (George Carlin) is to ensure everyone has happy... Set in Fairy Tale Land, this comedy features the heroes and villains of stories from Rumplestiltskin to Sleeping Beauty. The job of the wizard (George Carlin) is to ensure everyone has happy endings. But when he leaves on vacation, he entrusts his tasks to his inept assistants, and Cinderella's evil stepmother (Sigourney Weaver) begins to wreak havoc on the endings of fairy tales. Though she's interested in menace in general, she particularly wants her stepdaughter, Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar), to suffer. She vows to keep her from Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton), much to the delight of his servant, Rick (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), who is in love with Ella himself. HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER takes aim at the stories everyone knows by heart. Here Prince Charming needs a guidebook to behave like royalty, with Warburton fashioning a delightfully doltish contrast to traditional romantic heroes. Character actor Jon Polito plays a big bad wolf who could have been an extra on GOODFELLAS. As the wicked stepmother, Weaver turns decades of experience playing strong women into portraying this archetypal baddie. With its celebrity voices, HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER is an amusing reversal of Disney's fairy-tale films of the past. [More]
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin, Andy Dick, Michael McShane, Patrick Warburton, Wallace Shawn, Jon Polito
Director: Paul J. Bolger
Director: Paul J. Bolger
Screenwriter: Rob Moreland
Producer: John H. Williams
Composer: Paul Buckley
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Happily N'Ever After
Putting a spin on classic fairy tales is nothing new, and unfortunately that's just what the Shrek-lite animated feature Happily N'Ever After brings to the big screen.
A slick piece of computer animation that can be described as a family film only in the sense that it's a film the whole family will want to avoid.
'Happily N'Ever After' boasts lots of high-powered voice talent but not much charm or pizzazz.
Limping into theaters at the least admirable time of year, the film is a disaster on a scale we may not have seen yet in this genre. That would make it a new low.
It may satisfy the under-6 crowd with its bright colors and talking animals. But it's not much fun for the rest of the family.
There's one great clue that the picture was not born in Hollywood: the heaving bosoms. Only the Germans would bestow such careful, pillowy attention to the bustline of the wicked stepmother and the flying witches.
If you're old enough to read this sentence, you should probably go see something else.
It wouldn‘t seem possible, but this is yet another fractured fairy tale in which the characters subvert their own genre in self-conscious, smart-alecky fashion.
There is the requisite bathroom humor (though it's mild) and a wan effort to be a bit edgy by updating the looks of Cinderella. But it takes more than a spiffy short haircut to make a character memorable.
The wizard appears for two minutes at film's start before he smartly abandons the movie. You'll wish you had the good sense to walk out with him.
Not counting derivative, obnoxious, poorly animated, and woefully unfunny, what Happily is most of all is dull.
You expect a certain amount of sugar and snark in a modern children’s film, but this tossed-off retelling reeks of folks just out to make a cheap buck.
The computerised animation is cut-rate; the script keeps piling on clunker jokes that even toddlers will find lame; and Prinze proves he isn’t any better an actor in two dimensions than he is in three.
Dangerously close to scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to theatrically released animated movies.
Happily N'Ever After exists to reward anyone who's delighted in the destruction the Shrek franchise has waged against our fairy-tale memories.
While new times deserve new tales, this ground has already been trodden -- twice -- by a more memorable ogre than any you'll find in Ella's enchanted forest.
Quantities of unimaginative CGI do nothing to perk up a barely sketched storyline. I spent the movie scratching my head over which audience the studio is hoping to profit from with this noisy rubbish. YouTubers? Tots with ADD?
Latest News for Happily N'Ever After
June 23, 2008:
George Carlin: 1937-2008
George Carlin, the award-winning comedian, actor, and author responsible for one of the most groundbreaking routines in the history of American comedy, has passed away at the... More...
April 28, 2007:
Trailer & Poster review ![]()
More...
January 19, 2007:
Weaver Joining Cameron's "Avatar"?
Sigourney Weaver is having a busy year: Not only is her voice in theaters now, as the wicked stepmother in "Happily N'Ever After," but she'll also be seen in the... More...
January 11, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Can Sony "Stomp" the "Museum?"
Can Ben Stiller and his living artifacts four-peat at the top of the North American box office, or will one of the new releases take the crown over the four-day Dr. Martin... More...
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