Enchanted, the movie

OH MY this is now my absolute favorite movie! It's everything I love all wrapped into a movie - with 2 delicious hunky heroes (James Marsden as The Prince and Patrick Dempsey as Robert, a divorce lawyer) and the most wonderful fairy tale heroine, Amy Adams as Giselle. There's musical numbers, animated and live action, romance - it's truly delightful!

It starts out with a wonderfully animated Disney beginning, a true send-up of all their animated fairy tale movies with just a touch of irony. The heroine, with all her Disney animal friends, dreams up a hero but cannot imagine his lips. She sings about finding her true love with his magical kiss - meanwhile, her true love - out bagging a troll - sings along with her. He hears her, rushes to her and of course it's love at first sight and they are to be married in the morning.

Oh, but the evil queen of this country of Andalasia (Susan Sarandon) will have to give up her throne if Prince Edward marries, so she grabs Giselle before the wedding and throws her into a magic well - which pops the character up from a sewer hole in the middle of Times Square! Fully dressed in the fairy tale costume, I might add. Giselle wanders about until she happens upon Robert and his daughter, who help her out and take her home to dry off and call for help. Not that she has anyone she can call - as she said, "Oh, I don't think they can hear us from here!"

The actors playing The Prince and Giselle are so wonderful, so guileless, that I smiled the entire movie when I wasn't laughing out loud at the ingenuity of it all. Giselle starts her first day in New York by calling the animals to help her clean Robert's apartment. Well, it is New York City - so it's rats, cockroaches and pigeons, washing dishes and scrubbing toilets and singing along. At the end, a cockroach and pigeon eye each other - and SNAP the pigeon eats the roach. I about bust a gut.

Robert is finally on the verge of asking his girlfriend of 5 years to marry him, but as a divorce lawyer he's skeptical about the outcome. He admits as much to Giselle, and when Giselle shows Robert how a man should show a woman he loves her, she engages all of Central Park into a wonderful musical showstopper. Robert scowls through most of it, until the end when he too is swept into the fantasy. As a romantic gesture, Giselle has 2 doves deliver flowers and tickets to a ball to Robert's girlfriend. But it's sorta too late because it's pretty obvious Robert has now fallen head over heels for Giselle.

The Prince, having figured out the well trick, dives into the well to follow Giselle to the ends of the earth if necessary. It takes him a while to find her - he does have some help and hindrance in the form of one of his employees and an Andalasian chipmunk, who can no longer speak English in the Real World like he could in Andalasia. They dash about New York - he almost finds her in Central Park during the musical number, but manages to get knocked over by a bicycle club. Once he finds her, however, Giselle has come to the realization that her true prince is actually Robert, so she tries to find a way to delay their return to Andalasia.

She and The Prince go on a date - and damned if James Marsden doesn't look edible in his Andalasian Prince costume and a Statue of Liberty hat!! At the end of their date, they go to the ball that Robert is taking his girlfriend to, and the evil queen, realizing she must intervene before The Prince and Giselle marry (not having caught on that their relationship is on shaky grounds now), jumps into the well to offer the poisoned apple to Giselle to prevent the marriage.

Needless to say, we sit on the edges of our seats awaiting the resolution - for me, it was a no-brainer because it had to have a HEA - but how? It's wrapped up quite tidily and satisfactorily and funny too. Only the evil queen misses out on the HEA.

Well, it was a rollicking good time with so many nods to so many movies (complete with a nod to King Kong when the dragon climbs the building) that my head was spinning. Amy Adams was a delight. I just kept laughing and saying This is My New Favorite Movie! over and over. 5 Full Stars!