My Review of Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True · 2:29am Mar 19th, 2021
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
***********
Hey, guys. Once again, I present to you my second review of the Cinderella trilogy. Now, this film does have slight improvements over the original. One thing I do want to admire about it is the vastly improved animation especially since this was released in February 2002. The first movie was released in 1950, so that means that technology and quality in animation and filmmaking have upgraded over time to make it more appealing and appropriate for the modern generation. Despite the beautiful and gorgeous animation, this has alarming problems which are quite more annoying than were the boring aspects of the first movie.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room: the ENTIRE story is being told from the mice’ perspective. That’s right, you heard me correct. Jacques, Gus, and other mice were telling the story from their own perspective. Why is that an issue, you may ask? Well, there’s two things that I personally found to be... problematic. First of all, why couldn’t we have a movie entirely focused on them? I mean, they were the only interesting characters from the first film; thus, I think it would have been more entertaining to see them go through lively adventures together and perhaps do something of significance for the story. You know, something we can relate to.
But no... they are just sitting around doing random stuff and telling a story through flashbacks. To me, it’s just underwhelming. Well, actually, Jacques did get a moment to shine in this movie during the second act so I’ll give them that... if only he wasn’t a freaking HUMAN throughout the rest of it! Give me a break... 🤦🏻♂️
Second of all, the entire movie has no cohesive narrative! Seriously, it has about three main subplots that are all over the place with unfunny humor and cringeworthy lines of dialogue. Other lines from new characters were just so cheesy that it was hard to take seriously. I’m shaking my head right now as I’m thinking back on those scenes. They might have one harmonizing theme which is “dreams do come true”. Okay, that’s sweet and all, but that is one of the most overused, cliche, and classic “sunshine and rainbows” messages from Disney. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t like most of these Disney movies that much.
I’m personally more interested in real-life, down-to-earth morals such as how to handle and solve your problems, doing what is right, how to wisely make your life choices, and so forth. “Dreams come true” is good in and of itself, but not all of them come true. That’s just the reality, and this movie fails to convey that.
As for Anastasia, she was actually interesting for once. She finally has a character arc that involves her in character development and good chemistry with that baker guy and Cinderella. And the way she stood up to her stepmother was really well done. If only the entire movie focused on her, this would have been ten times better. Alas, this was saved for the third act. To that, here is my response:
Overall, this has slight improvements such as the third act and the eye-catching animation, but the narrative was all over the place, incoherent, and filled with dumb humor and cringe dialogue. 4/10
It is time for the light to shine at the end of the tunnel once more!
I never 2 and 3.