Enchanted

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Enchanted's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Enchanted completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 18 December 2007.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Enchanted contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

In the animated land of Andalasia, beautiful Giselle (Amy Adams) waits patiently for her ‘true love’s kiss’ to seal her fate to live happily ever after. She believes her dreams have come true when she is rescued from a harrowing incident with a troll by the handsome Prince Edward (James Marsden). Unfortunately Giselle’s and Edward’s wedding plans are thrown awry, when the Prince’s evil stepmother, Queen Narcissa (Susan Sarandon) and her sidekick, Nathaniel (Timothy Spall), lure Giselle away from the castle and push her into a well. The evil plot is witnessed by Giselle’s friend, Pip the chipmunk, who tries to let the Prince know what has happened.
Meanwhile, Giselle emerges from a man hole in ‘real-world’ New York, where she immediately finds herself lost, alone and bewildered. Divorce lawyer, Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his young daughter, Morgan, rescue Giselle and reluctantly decide to take care of her. Over the next few days, Giselle discovers the joys and pitfalls of life and love in the ‘real-world’, all the while asserting that her love, Prince Edward, will ‘come for her’.

Prince Edward, on discovering what has happened to Giselle, sets out the rescue her again, and followed closely by the chipmunk. On the Queen’s orders to sabotage the Prince’s efforts and to poison Giselle, Nathaniel also enters the real world to give chase. All the real-world and Analasian characters get closer and closer to finding each other, just as Giselle discovers who she really is and whom she really loves.
Queen Narcissa becomes increasingly desperate to get rid of Giselle, and in a final bid to ensure this happens, she too enters the ‘real-world’. All the friends and perceived enemies must finally join forces to defeat their combined greatest threat, Queen Narcissa.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Death

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• Nathaniel is shown holding a knife to the chipmunk’s throat in a threatening manner.
• Prince Edward is run down by a group of cyclists in Central Park. He is ruffled but not seriously injured.
• Nathaniel clips the chipmunk to a clothes hanger as a means of torturing and imprisoning him.
• Nathaniel attempts to kill the chipmunk by throwing him into an oven. The chipmunk escapes, but is stuck in a bottle.
• The queen, in the guise of the old witch, convinces Giselle to take a bite from the poisoned apple. Giselle then collapses into unconsciousness.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of eight, including the following:

• In the animated section of the movie, a giant troll gives chase to Giselle and her friends. They appear scared and end up perched high on a branch of a tree. Giselle falls, but is saved by the Prince.
• On her way to marry Edward, Giselle is waylaid by the Queen disguised as an old and ugly witch. Giselle is led over to a well and is pushed into it by the Queen.
• Giselle appears afraid as she falls through the well. She is transformed into a real girl and climbs through a man-hole portal into the chaos of real world traffic. She appears overwhelmed and gets lost in the crowd. She eventually emerges from a subway, alone on a rainy night in a strange place.
• Giselle recruits pigeons, cockroaches and rats to clean up Robert and Morgan’s apartment. A pigeon is shown eating a live cockroach.
• Nathaniel sees the Queen’s face in his soup. She uses this as a portal to communicate with him. She tells Nathaniel to poison Giselle with a poisoned apple. Giselle is nearly poisoned on 2 occasions.
• The queen transforms into fierce large dragon and carries Robert away with her up a high rise tower. While Giselle tries to rescue him by attacking the dragon, the dragon lets goes of him and he falls. His jacket gets caught on ledge briefly, before he falls again. This time he is caught by Giselle and saved. The dragon falls from the top of the tower, crashing into a heap on the ground.
• Giselle falls off an elevated balcony, but falls into the arms of Robert and is uninjured.

Over the age of eight

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened. Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film

Product placement

None of concern

Sexual references

None of concern

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Giselle is shown taking a shower behind a screen. When Robert walks into the bathroom, Giselle’s body (torso) is concealed by a towel held by two birds.
  

Use of substances

None of concern

Coarse language

None of concern

The movie's message

Enchanted is a light-hearted romantic comedy, featuring a mix of old style animation and real life action. Young children are likely to enjoy the engaging, attractive characters, and the physical comedy of the movie. Older children and adults may find the references to old Disney movies amusing, and appreciate the overall production quality and performances in the film.

Values that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include the strong female role model, courage and persistence in adversity, and looking after those in need. This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss lying, manipulating and tricking people, and cruelty to animals.