Enchanted is a sweet little film for all ages. Many films send real people into various fantasylands, but it's much rarer to find fantasy characters that venture into reality. During the animated fairy tale opening, an angry evil stepmother casts the happy naïve princess into a land where dreams don't come true, where there are no happy endings – big city USA.

Taking a lesson or two from Evan Almighty, Enchanted stirs up a gaggle of city creatures from cockroaches to pigeons to help the damsel in distress transition into this new world of live action and harsh reality. The film soars during these moments. But the real action of the film is the heart of the matter, which beats in discussions between this innocent woman who never doubts true loves ability to find that elusive happy-ending and the jilted bachelor who's given up on that "lovey-dovey" stuff. Speaking of love, I love their interactions. How she, simply by being herself, cajoles him slowly out of his shell enough to start thinking about real love. And not so obviously, how he plants a few seeds in her head too. So that in the end the moral isn't as easy or simple as the whole feel of this production might lead you to believe.

There's also prince charming, his chipmunk and the bumbling foil that leave the land of cartoon and become real. Their plights are mostly cute, seldom powerful, but pleasant enough.

The picture climaxes strongly and sweetly. Silly me, I got choked up. But then all too soon, the film takes an awful turn. It's a segment of about 5 minutes long integrated seemingly only for its special effects appeal. It's awful and distracts strongly from an otherwise beautiful climax. I'm assuming this wasn't part of the original script. It feels so wrong in image, tone, and dialogue. Yuck. I'm guessing it also interrupted the otherwise well set-up arc for the bumbling foil to become the hero.

Fortunately, once that segment is over, the film is allowed to resolve much more gracefully. The pop-up-book credits wrap up the picture nicely. Would have given it an A-, but that awful segment knocks it down to a B+.

(Note: While I am only a humble reviewer of this film, I've written a series of books that likewise enjoys blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. So if you enjoy reading books that dance at such an intersection check out "Rodney Appleseed" at www.RossAnthony.com)

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