You probably think I'm some sort of heartless bitch for giving a movie like this such a low rating. But, I have my reasoning and I will explain it in the review. I realize that Cinderella is a classic, and with the nostalgia goggles of that time, its a piece of filmmaking genius, but I personally don't think it's that spectacular as a film, although it definitely has some good qualities about it, like the stunning animation, the cat and mouse slapstick, and the relatively memorable songs. Plus, the villain is actually quite scary, but in a way that's different from most villains. But I'll get to that soon.
Cinderella is about our poor abused heroine named, you guessed it, Cinderella. We hear story of her father and his tragic death but no mother (as is disney standards also, at least in the old wave of princesses). Cinderella is a good girl, takes it like a bitch in hopes that one day her true love will find her and her dreams will come true despite not actively pursuing them. Her evil stepmother and evil stepsisters receive an invitation to the ball by the King, who desperately wants his son to marry because its a fairytale and whatnot. Anyway, you should know how the rest of this goes, she loses the glass slipper at the ball, if the slipper fits, the prince marries Cinderella, and they all live happily ever after.
Disney's strong ground seemed in that time to be European folk and fairytales, and also in the message of wishing upon a star. The truth is, you can't just dream and expect something will happen. Like it says in The Princess and the Frog, you have to work hard to achieve your dreams. Technically, the message is believe in your dreams, not just dream and hope something will happen despite not actively pursuing anything. I could nitpick about Cinderella's then-position as role model and the horrible message of this film forever, but I'm trying to keep this review under a milennium long so lets move on.
The voice acting is good, but the singing is even better. The characters however are pretty hit and miss. I love the cat and the mice, especially all the slapstick-based scenes they share, and I love the evil stepsisters and stepmother even though they are all supreme bitches. The two characters I don't really like though are Cinderellla and Prince whatever-the-hell-his-name-is. I suppose as characters go, they aren't that bad, but they're just so boring that I can't really get involved with them even though I feel sorry for Cinderella. Plus, the prince is in the movie so little that you could pretty much leave him out all together and lose nothing.
Lady Tremaine (Evil Stepmother) however, is a spectacular villain and one of Disney's best. She didn't have any superpowers (unless you count her deathly stare) or even evil minions (unless you count the stepsisters), but she just had control over one person's life and boy did she squeeze every last drop out of it. This is one crazy lady that nobody should have to live with, much less anyone prettier than her (namely, Cinderella). The stepsisters are auxiliary villains in the movie along with Lucifer the cat, and they are all okay characters, nothing compared to Lady Tremaine though.
The songs are good and will remain classic alongside this classic movie. The animation is stellar as well and the warm colour scheme really brings a lot to the movie. I know I have been praising it and gave it only a 70, but I only gave it a 70 because of the blandness of our main protagonist and the horrible message it sends.
However, this is an animated classic and I have great respect for it. I would also recommend it to those who haven't seen it purely because of the cute mice and good villain. All in all, not disney's best movie, but far from their worst (that title goes to Chicken Little, which I may review sometime soon). For Animation Domination, expect a great film that is neither Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks.
