I appreciate when writers are deliberate with their messages and up-date issues in old storylines, but I fear when it's done like this, it doesn't help. This up-dated take on Cinderella is forced and dissatsifying. Feminism isn't about switching roles (spoiler: the prince now becomes the princess' side-kick), it's about empowering women, not about disempowering men. Also, if a female character is empowered in a new way in a classic story, that shouldn't mean that the story becomes worse, an empowered woman should improve the story (otherwise what message does that send?, plus it doesn't make sense). If the king could easily decide to make his daughter queen, it should have been easy for him to arrange for the future queen (Cinderella) to be a dressmaker. The whole conflict that makes her choose her passion over the prince seems constructed and unreal. In the end, the storyline forces the prince into the position that Cinderella rejected. That's a really unhealthy relationship dynamic. That's not what feminism is about.
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EssenceSeeker10 September 2021
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Leofwine_draca4 September 2021Another revamp of the classic fairy tale, this time given a modern multi-ethnic HAMILTON type vibe. Pure fantasy throughout with a medieval backdrop with modernist elements at times. The whole thing is about the superficiality of appearance with the emphasis on fancy clothing and casting attractive performers in the lead roles, but of course on the other side of that you get extremely shallow characters and stilted acting. Cinderella has been given a feminist spin in that she's now a successful fashion designer in her own right, but they also prolong feminine stereotypes by doing that. How about making her a master builder? James Corden continues to be the kiss of death for everything he appears in, and the only interesting songs are covers. Not a recommended film.
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wawewi6 September 2021Tried and failed miserably. In my teenage daughter's words: "this movie is cringy!"
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Lavender167 September 2021Literally so many things wrong with this movie it would take an essay.
Cannot rate it lower. -
hrherika-358013 September 2021This was by far the worst version of Cinderella I have ever viewed. I have a masters in Musical theatre and usually love this genre, but found myself fast forwarding through almost every musical number- they were that horrible. Camila Cabello may be passable on a pop number but cannot hold her own in a musical. I wish I could find something good to say. It was completely dreadful. Take a pass if you can!
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alexandrapetroiu3 September 2021Cast looked good but the storyline it was terrible, Camilla as well good as a singer but not acting. Also James Corden needs to stop doing movies!
Why change such a classic like Cinderella trying making "modern"...honestly, don't waste your time!! -
questl-1859211 September 2021I feel bad for the children of this generation if this is the Cinderella they have to grow up with. Once upon a time, Disney nailed this with a wonderfully animated masterpiece full of whimsy and magic. Now we get this mashed up, sloppy mess to slog through. The songs all feel forced and out of place, like the person in charge of song selection just picked out a bunch of songs they liked and then threw them all over the timeline of this film whether they make any sense or not. We get like three rise up/empowerment songs in the first 20 minutes, a love song about 30 seconds after Cinder and the Prince meet and a few too many reprises.
But hey, it's a musical, so the music has to at least be good ri- NOPE! 99% of the songs feel so off because it's painfully obvious they weren't sung anywhere near the moment but rather were recorded in a studio and then later layered on top of all the lip synchs. I get that doing songs during shoots could be tough but they could've at least tried a little to make it sound better and more accurate. Got Cinderella running and jumping all over the place while singing and her tone never changes in the slightest and you can feel that.
The characters are classics, pre-written for the movie with years of history and background to pull from. They still mess it up. Motivations are sloppy and muddled. Character growth happens in fits and spurts rather than feeling like there's any sort of progression. The prince goes from a perma-bachelor bro to in love with Cinder in no time at all for something completely stupid (that would've gotten her imprisoned as well). Cinderella rarely feels like the downtrodden, put upon sister we all know her to be. Instead she's got a couple of mildly annoying step-sisters but don't worry! Rather than dealing with them she'll spend her time in this surprisingly large and fairly stylish basement/dress making area. There's only one or two times she really seems all that put upon and they feel so shocking that, once again, it draws me out of the film.
The only redeeming factors, to me, were the mice, Idina Menzel and the fairy "godmother." The mice added a nice little splash of comedy but were hit and miss at times. Idina Menzel brought he spectacular pipes to show and she belts out some stunning notes throughout this that really showed off the difference between pop star and stage star. Then we have Billie Porter as the Fabulous Godmother. While I don't love the character, I really appreciate how Porter was just going for it. It was clear he was having fun in the role and that's what this really needed.
Cinderella is a mess. It's tone deaf, confused about it's message, poorly written, poorly paced and as much as I can appreciate anachronisms in film when done right, these are not. The random influx of modern terminology and jokes feels so out of place in this setting and when coupled with the clash of empowering and degrading women it just doesn't work. Even the big finale was telegraphed to the point that as soon as we meet a certain character I looked at the friend I was watching it with and we both immediately called the ending of this. This is not worth watching the actual movie for. If anything, wait a little bit until the scenes are all available on youtube and just look up Menzel and Porter's moments. The rest of this is just a waste of a classic property. -
Gordon-1125 September 2021This is a modern reimagining is Cinderella, with more than a touch of diversity and politically correctness. I think the modern update is a bit too much, and they try too hard to make it relevant to the modern day. The end result is a film that doesn't appeal to anyone.
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tessa-m144 September 2021I don't stand the hate. I enjoyed this movie. Sure it was kinda cringe. But I thought it was funny in parts, and it had me laughing. The acting was fine... the love story was cute... especially the scene where they sang Ed Sheeran's song "Perfect"!
This movie isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Most are just cranky about James Cordan, they can't help but cry about it haha.
I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. This is a cute teen movie, and that's all. -
Sleepin_Dragon16 October 2021It tries so hard to be politically correct and equal, that it forgets the meaning of the story.
Some of the worst acting I have ever seen in my life, at times I thought I was watching a spoof, this really does need to be seen to be believed.
The people behind this movie wanted to make some sort of statement, that is obvious, but to literally tear up the sweet story of Cinderella, that's just not on, couldn't you have called it something else? What next? I shudder to think.
I wanted to like it, but come on this was just cringe worthy.
A disaster, 2/10. -
huntjohnjnr4 September 2021I mean its a jukebox musical with a singer (not actor) as the lead and another Cinderella movie thats tryna be unique among all the other Cinderella movies... And for what it is, it's AMAZING! If you wanna watch something profound, or "not too woke/preachy", than you probably won't like this....
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sweetlaci5 September 2021When I turned it on and saw it was a musical I almost turned it off. I'm not a fan of musicals and I generally don't watch them or I fast forward through the singing. But I decided to keep an open mind and I'm glad I did. The singing wasn't bad or over the top.
I really liked the the last song and dance scene of the movie.
And I love the message for girls to go after their dreams. -
mochteam19 September 2021People will dislike this movie for an array of reasons.
I dislike the film because I'm simply tired of bad movies like this chop,cut,and pasted to suit whatever social topics are trending today.
The icing on the cake though are the terrible songs and autotuned robotic singing from Camilla Cabello just to remind you that talent isn't required to be famous.
This movie will rightfully take it's place among other cinematic failures such as that live action DBZ film from years ago. -
xyzddpmk6 September 2021Wow. What a waste of costume designing, set design, costume manufacturers, writing, talented actors...I could go on. I really tried to love it.
I know it's supposed to be a different version but it was truly unnecessary. Sad times. -
superterp036 September 2021Moulin Rouge, Ella Enchanted and Glee rolled into one, punched together with dance moves. Though not done well.
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jbrewer-229074 September 2021This would normally be my perfect type of movie but wow, it was awful! I think I read another review of someone saying "if they hadn't of known the story of Cinderella, they wouldn't have followed this" and they are right!
Note to Producers- If you want to change the plot and push a different message... name the film something else!!!
A great cast line up (even if a very random mix) subjected to being in a bad TV movie that looked and felt so fake and staged.
A 2 hour film that half of it was bulked out by a selection of mostly rubbish pop music that the writer clearly thought the lyrics enhanced the story.... it didn't. Therefore, 1 hour to fill with actual script. No character depth or development and I honestly did not care if they got together or not! There was absolutely zero chemistry. I didn't care about any of the characters by the end!
The princes idiotic behaviour at the beginning was so out of place it made it unbelievable that Cinderella would even like him!
I wouldn't even bore my kids to get them to watch this. -
artistcrazy4 September 2021This movie sucks!!! Bad acting , unoriginal songs and just weird movie!!!
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darrenco19673 September 2021There is some good in this version of Cinderella.
Take it with a pinch of salt and don't take it seriously. It isnt a classic.
Fans of Miss Cabello are going to love this and her acting was OK. She hammed up the role just enough.
There were definitely some miscast roles, but all the actors played this a little tongue in cheek.
This was a live action version of all of the recent animated movies acting as a vehicle for a pop soundtrack.
The writer and the director could have made a much better movie by focussing on some of the other characters like Princess Gwen. -
cakemixed9237 September 2021This movie is so cringeworthy. Absolutely everything about it was awful, except for the mice. Anyone connected to this movie must be embarrassed. How did this even get made?
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seanlove963 September 2021Beautifully shot, colorful and light. For goodness sake, if you have Amazon, it was free, why waste energy to bash it?
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TxMike5 September 2021In summary my wife and I, grandparents, enjoyed this musical movie as light entertainment. It uses a lot of mostly contemporary songs that are actually sung by the cast. Most singing is pretty good, some of it not so much, but it does fine for this type of movie. It is mostly funny, at times absurd, with elaborate production numbers.
The biggest divergence is both the prince and Ella are, in different ways, reluctant to accept the traditional roles. He isn't sure he really wants to follow his father as King, she isn't sure she wants to be a wife of a King, maybe being a dress designer would be more fulfilling.
Right after release on Amazon streaming this movie has received lots of unjustified, very negative reviews. It isn't a bad movie, in fact it is very well made and interesting for any viewer in the right frame of mind. It isn't my type of movie, I'll probably not re-watch it, but that doesn't make it a bad movie. A rating of 5 or 6 is probably just about right. -
segarza-765293 September 2021It's not the worst movie ever like some people say. It definitely had some moments that make you cringe a bit with the music or jokes, but there was a freshness to it that was enjoyable at parts too. People need to lighten up and it's nice to see a "princess" movie where she fights for love and her dream. Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver were actually my favorite parts of the movie. You wanted to punch him but in the end I loved how it worked out.
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imdb_girl905 December 2021I had my prime subscription and hence watched.
Don't know what your excuse is.
Spare yourself if you haven't started watching it already.
I got a headache. -
pedrojulioh-196-4178704 September 2021So painful to watch. Bad story, obviously written by a sensitive millennial. Zero chemical between the main characters. Bad music, bad dance, ridiculous. Sony, you should let Disney handled these kind of movies keep doing your super hero movies.