Cinderella (2021) – Film Review

Cinderella (Camila Cabello), an orphaned girl with an evil stepmother named Vivian (Idina Menzel), has big dreams and with the help of her Fabulous Godmother (Billy Porter), she perseveres to make them come true.

In today’s world, the Disney live-action remakes are practically inescapable, and you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who thinks they are simply “okay” or “decent”. It seems as though you either love or hate them – I, for one, love the vast majority of them including The Jungle Book and Aladdin but Jon Favreau’s “live-action” adaptation of The Lion King was perhaps one of the worst blockbuster films of the whole decade for me.

Because these new live-action remakes make a ton of money at the box office, Disney is definitely going to continue making them whether or not critics adore them because it seems as though, interestingly enough, audience scores for them can be quite high. However, I can’t help but wonder why they decided to make a new Cinderella film in 2021. After all, they already made a new live-action Cinderella movie in 2015 starring Lily James as the titular princess. It actually wasn’t too bad of a movie surprisingly, and it was the first time Disney had made an effort to revitalize their old catalog.

So, if the 2015 version got praise, why bother with yet another live-action version of this classic tale? The only explanation that makes sense to me is money. But, I was willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubt and see if it was going to be a pleasant surprise, but sadly, it’s not. Kay Cannon‘s Cinderella is an oftentimes incredibly cringe-worthy, painfully unfunny, and disappointingly bland “re-imagining” that lacks any sort of heart that makes the original animated film so great.

Camila Cabello as the titular character is actually the least of this film’s problems – I actually thought she did a fairly good job in the role and she made it her own which I was delighted to see. She didn’t try to copy Lily James’ performance or anything, but rather, she injected her own personality and charisma into the role and she made for a charming and likable lead. The casting team did a great job in that department.

Other actors though… not so much. For example, why in the world is James Corden in this as a mouse? His performance is not only hilariously bad but it’s the kind of performance that makes you wonder why he ever signed on to the project, to begin with. Like I said before, it’s probably for one reason and one reason only – money. Billy Porter is fun and entertaining as ever in the role of the Fabulous Godmother, but sadly, he is barely in the movie. How much is he in the movie you may ask? One scene. And surprising nobody, his one and only scene is one of the best in the movie.

This movie’s biggest problem lies with its script – it just feels so bland and lacks any sense of urgency. In the original animated classic, you genuinely felt for Cinderella and you wanted her to attend the ball. When her evil stepmother does everything she can to ensure she can’t attend, you feel angry and you want to scream “Just let her go!”. Here, however, there is barely any conflict whatsoever.

Vivian just sort of tells her “You can’t go. Somebody wants to marry you”, to which Cinderella puts up a small protest and then goes anyway. There’s essentially no big conflict in the movie which, in turn, makes the film lack any sense of urgency whatsoever. You never feel like she has any sort of moral conflict here which is a big shame because this film seriously thinks its number-one entertaining factor is its musical numbers which vary between good and horrible.

Some of the songs here are an absolute blast to listen to and the choreography that went into them is great. But, there are others that made me question why they were even included in the film in the first place. Ed Sheeran‘s “Perfect” is an excellent song, but why in the world is it in a Cinderella movie? Furthermore, “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes is in this movie in one of the most head-scratchingly bizarre scenes in the film.

I’m usually a big fan of Kay Cannon’s work and I feel as though she is quite underrated. Her feature directorial debut Blockers was one of the biggest surprises for me in 2018 – a comedy that talks a lot about sex but managed to have a huge beating heart in the center of it. In fact, lots of Cannon’s films have a big beating heart, so why doesn’t Cinderella? It’s the only film of hers that feels like a corporate money grab which is a shame because she’s clearly a talented filmmaker.

There’s really no reason to see the new Cinderella unless you are a die-hard Disney fan and you have a curious itch that you want to scratch. Other than that though, there’s no reason to check this one out. Cabello does a good job with one of the blandest and most formulaic scripts of the year. Disney most likely wanted this to be the Cinderella movie that speaks to today’s generation, but I simply don’t see that happening at all.