"Once upon a time," starting a movie with that phrase was acceptable.
Now, it’s a tell-tale sign of a film with no greater aspirations than being a shoddy reworking of a story that came before it. Naturally, Amazon’s "Cinderella" started off with those very words in a narrative passage as annoying as it was uninspired.
But if "Cinderella" had just stuck to fairy-tale cliches and made minor tweaks to modernize the plot, I would’ve understood. With the cacophony of movie remakes, reboots and sequels continuously making their way into the movie market, it would've made sense.
Instead, the team behind this movie decided to lean all the way in, as though they were actively looking for ways to make it as unoriginal as possible.
My mind turns immediately to the music.
Almost every number in this musical was a cover of another song. Their execution falls flat on its face, with the ridiculously commercial-sounding pop adaptations of classics like Queen’s “Somebody to Love” and modern love songs like Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” — blowing any meaning those songs used to have up into smithereens.
To the film’s credit, there are a few original numbers clumsily thrown in alongside the, again, ghastly covers. Yet, “original” is a bit of a stretch considering half of these are rap numbers by the Town Crier (Doc Brown) that sound suspiciously similar to the music in "Hamilton."
Each song was made even worse by the unmistakable sound of pitch correction, which was very poorly concealed. Everyone’s voice had an aggressively processed sound, to the point where they didn’t even sound human at times — except Idina Menzel, who doesn’t sound human only because she’s so ridiculously talented.
The music is accompanied by very flamboyant but ultimately hollow dance routines that can at best be described as “messy” and “chaotic.”
