Cinderella
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 1.0
Branagh takes the classic "Cinderella" story, about poor, parentless Ella (Lily James), her wicked stepmother (Cate Blanchett), her falling in love with her Prince (Richard Madden) and her Happily Ever After (you know the routine) ... and adds nothing of value to it (what, no feminist revision like Maleficent?). It's tame and uninspired - unless you consider the gratuitous usage of CGI to turn the pumpkin into a carriage and mice into horses to be somehow special (I do not) - and encourages Blanchett to really turn up the nastiness (she's such a bland villain). Branagh's one wise move was casting Helena Bonham Carter as the ditzy Fairy Godmother ... otherwise this is far inferior to the classic cartoon version from 1950.
