It's difficult these days to find a completely irony-free piece of entertainment. Practically everything under the sun now comes encased in its own thick coating of self-awareness, all the better to combat an increasingly jaded audience. Hey, they're just gonna roll their eyes anyways, so why don't we do it for them, right? Even entertainment aimed at children now comes complete with characters totally unafraid of breaking the fourth wall to comment about the inherent corniness of what the wee ones are about to watch. Fairy tales have been particularly ripe for plundering in recent years. Shrek and its lucrative sequels have taken musty old concepts of derring-do and helpless damsels awaiting handsome princes to sweep them off their feet and thumbed their noses at the Grimm's back catalogue.

But, what if someone approached this convention-breaking concept from another angle? What if the characters in a fairy tale were rudely thrust into the "real" world, yet retained their unflappably sunny demeanors in the face of harsh reality? The canny new Disney feature Enchanted takes this idea and runs with it, to audience-pleasing results.

Opening in a splash of lush, Technicolor animation (rendered with bracingly old-fashioned 2-D techniques that have been sadly abandoned by the studio in recent years), we're introduced to the kingdom of Andalasia, wherein a comely, flame-haired peasant lass named Giselle pines away to experience "true love's kiss". She quickly makes the acquaintance of Prince Edward, a jut-jawed adventurer who's instantly smitten with her. The happy couple quickly plan a wedding... until the Prince's evil stepmother, Queen Narissa, intervenes. Seems that, if Giselle marries Edward, she'll lose her right to the throne (isn't that always the way?). She quickly lures Giselle to the edge of a wishing well on her wedding day (disguised as an old hag), then rudely pushes her in. When Queen Narissa's simpering henchman Nathaniel inquires as to where Narissa has banished her, she coldly replies "To a place where there are no happy endings."

And where is this? When Giselle finally comes out the other side, she emerges from a manhole into Times Square, in "our" world. The film now shifts into live-action, as Giselle (now portrayed in the well-scrubbed flesh by Amy Adams), frightened and lost in this strange new world, wanders the streets until she fortuitously crosses paths with Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), a widowed divorce lawyer who, at the urging of his young daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey), begrudgingly agrees to put her up for the night. Giselle, despite her predicament, nevertheless makes herself right at home, her perpetually perky demeanor reasserting itself as she sets to work cleaning Robert's slovenly apartment with the help of some cute animal friends. Of course, this being New York, the local wildlife she summons with a few lilting notes sung out the window turns out to consist of sewer rats, pigeons, cockroaches, and clouds of buzzing flies. This turns into a wicked riff on Snow White's "Whistle While You Work" musical number, satirizing the cutsey-wootsy Disney-fied wholesomeness while nevertheless winning the viewer over with the bubbly cleverness. 

However, Giselle is not the only Andalasian native to make a trip to the Big Apple. Soon, Prince Edward pops out of the same manhole, now portrayed by a frequently hilarious James Marsden (the X-Men films, Superman Returns). Edward is determined to find his lost love, even as Queen Narissa's henchman Nathaniel (now played by Timothy Spall) follows him in an attempt to derail his quest. Oh yeah, and also along for the ride is Giselle's cuddly chipmunk friend Pip, who spoke in a Joe Pesci tough-guy patter in Andalasia but is now reduced to a series of angry rodent squeaks provided by director Kevin Lima.

As these three culture-clash with a nonplussed populace of jaded New Yawkers, Giselle's sweet, trusting nature begins to rub off on Robert almost against his will, particularly when a trip to Central Park elicits a buoyant musical number titled "How Will You Know", Giselle's radiance breaking though to the delighted crowds like a ray of sunshine. However, Robert finds himself torn between his growing feelings for this beguiling stranger and his long-term relationship with his girlfriend Nancy Tremane (Idina Menzel), whom he has been dating for five years, afraid to make a commitment without building an iron-clad foundation for their relationship.

Soon, all the film's plotlines come to a head at - you guessed it - a lavish costume ball, with Giselle and Robert both forced to reassess their outlook on life and love, Giselle having second thoughts about her fatuous Prince Charming and Robert second-guessing his dry, passionless courtship with Nancy. Not to mention the devious plans of a certain party crasher... Queen Narissa herself (now played by an eyebrow-arching Susan Sarandon), who has taken it upon herself to finish the job consistently bungled by Nathaniel, leading to a King Kong climax with Giselle bucking the expected fairy tale norm and coming to the rescue of Robert's Dude In Distress.

One's reaction to Enchanted will probably depend on one's affection for Disney in general. Those who despise the studio on general principle will probably find most of the film's airy whimsy to induce cavities (and it's kind of sad that hand-drawn animation, which the studio's fortunes were initially built upon, is now utilized as visual shorthand for "musty" and "old-fashioned"). But those who actually like this sort of thing will find much to enjoy. However, the film lives or dies on its performances, and Adams positively glows. With her saucer-eyed radiance, her precise gesticulating, and a singing voice so angelic she makes Julie Andrews (who narrates the film) sound like a laryngitis-inflected bullfrog, Adams evokes the wasp-waisted Disney Princess archetype with unerring precision. One heavy-handed wink at the audience, and the film's delicate balance would topple over with a resounding crash, but, dammit, Adams makes you completely and utterly believe the film's absurd premise. Hell, one imagines her flatulence smelling like French perfume.

Also scoring with a rich, comedic performance is Marsden as Prince Edward. With his absurdly chiseled cheekbones stretching into a fatuous grin, he's a foppish, self-absorbed hoot, flouncing around in a poofy-shouldered outfit as he scours the city for his beloved, leading to one of the film's biggest laughs as his fruity reprisal of the love ballad "Love's First Kiss" is rudely cut short when he's run over by a pack of Central Park bicyclists. Like Adams, he's completely fearless about looking ridiculous, and the overtly "cartoony" mannerisms of the two win the viewer over with sheer enthusiasm.

If there's a major fault with the film, it's Dempsey's performance. I realize that the film's dramatic arc requires him to be something of a grouchy realist at first in order to allow Giselle's sunny nature to break through his emotional defenses, yet Dempsey actually does too good a job in this respect. I realize this won't matter a whit to all those McDreamy-obsessed soccer moms to whom his casting was obviously pitched (I watched the film with my mother, who naturally swooned), yet, for some perverse reason, I kind of wanted Giselle to end up with Edward! At least Edward seems, I dunno, enthusiastic, even if he is misguided.

That said, Enchanted is a wholesome bit of Disney family fun. If that sounds like your cup of tea, enjoy. If not... well then bah, humbug.

Presentation
Like their 2003 animated feature Brother Bear, Disney presents Enchanted in an unusual, clever way, its opening animated segments in Andalasia presented in a 1:75.1 ratio that blossoms into a fuller, 2:35.1 ratio when Giselle first arrives in New York. The cartoon sections of the film are positively immaculate, with gorgeous, saturated colors. The New York sections are equally wonderful to behold, the settings attaining the bright, studio sheen of a 50's MGM backlot. Hey, it's Disney, so you never have to worry about how good it's gonna look. The 5.1 audio (in both Dolby Digital and DTS)  is equally excellent, with terrific stereo separation for Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz's infectious musical numbers and Menken's appropriately busy, Mickey Mouse-y score.

Extras
Sadly, the film's excellent technical presentation is likely due to what's not included on this release. In the tradition of those recent, disappointing one-disc Pixar DVDs like Cars and Ratatouille, Enchanted is distressingly light on extras, due either to an inevitable 2-disc double-dip or just the studio hoarding the best material for a Blu-Ray release. There's no commentary or in-depth look at the film's production. What we do get begins with a mild, 2:11 Blooper Reel which only underlines the fact that set screw-ups are only funny when the performers are allowed to curse. The submenu Fantasy Comes To Life offers three all-too-brief featurettes, Happy Working Song (6:26), That's How You Know (5:55) and A Blast At The Ball (5:28). These three making-ofs examine the use of live animals mixed with computer trickery (often inserting computer-generated props into the hands of live-action rats and pigeons), special rigs to allow physical interactions with the CG animals and Adams (I especially liked the "spinning dress" gag), the elaborate choreography of the big Central Park musical number (with one elderly extra revealing he played a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins), and stunt people getting yanked around on wires when Queen Narissa transforms into a hulking dragon at the film's ballroom climax.

A lot of this stuff is intriguing, but, alas, it all breezes by way too fast. We also get a Deleted Scenes reel (7:51 total), with director Kevin Lima (who made the studio's fine Tarzan animated feature) offering commentary as to why scenes were trimmed or dropped (including an extended opening in Andalasia that's presented in storyboard form), a Music Video for the song "Ever, Ever After" (3:33) featuring a 'toon likeness of singer Carrie Underwood, a brief plug for the film's Blu-Ray release (1:19) informing the viewer what additional extras they're missing out on (classy, guys), and Pip's Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure (5:38), a mediocre segment narrated by Julie Andrews detailing Pip the chipmunk's attempts to locate Prince Edward when Giselle gets tossed down that well. Kids will watch this exactly once, and then beg to see the feature itself again (and again... and again... ). Lastly, there's the usual, exhausting Sneak Peeks menu, offering the usual hard-sell looks at The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (so, is this like Batman Begins, or what?), Minute Men, Jungle Book 2, Hannah Montana: One In A Million, Tinkerbell, Disney Parks, Disney Blu-Ray, The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, National Treasure: Book Of Secrets and Sleeping Beauty. Consume, parents, consume...

Bottom Line
Only the most churlish of viewers could resist this bracingly corny bit of family entertainment. And hey... at least we can all look forward to the inevitable future movie where Adams follows in the footsteps of previous squeaky-clean Disney princess Anne Hathaway and appears topless is some grimy, direct-to-DVD thriller in an attempt to "reinvent" her career.