★ 5 / 10
A Cinderella Story" has become an iconic franchise
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"A Cinderella Story" has become an iconic franchise, with the version starring Hilary Duff standing out as a standout favorite. While Duff's portrayal…
"A Cinderella Story" has become an iconic franchise, with the version starring Hilary Duff standing out as a standout favorite. While Duff's portrayal alongside Chad Michael Murray brought a modern twist to the classic tale of Cinderella, subsequent installments in the franchise have failed to live up to the same standard.
The franchise seems to be struggling to recapture the magic of the original film, instead resorting to unnecessary side stories and deviations from the core Cinderella narrative. It appears that attempts to replicate the success of the Walt Disney and Roger and Hammerstein versions have fallen short, leading to a sense of fatigue and irrelevance surrounding the franchise.
Despite the star power of Selena Gomez in "Another Cinderella Story," the film failed to reach the heights set by Hilary Duff's portrayal. Similarly, Lucy Hale's "A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song" was criticized for its lackluster execution and departure from the essence of the Cinderella story.
"Sofia Carson's "A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits" attempted to capitalize on dance elements reminiscent of "Grease," but ultimately fell flat, marking a low point in the franchise. Laura Marano's "A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish" was deemed the weakest link in the series, solidifying the downward trend in quality.
As the franchise continues with new installments, the lackluster reception of recent films has dampened enthusiasm for further entries in the series. Viewers may find it challenging to engage with future releases given the disappointing trajectory of the franchise.
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★ 7 / 10
Great as a Cinderella story; just so-so as a high school rom-com
BrandtSponseller
I haven't looked at other reviews of A Cinderella Story yet, but especially because it's a Hilary Duff film, I'd expect there to be a lot of scathing comments.…
I haven't looked at other reviews of A Cinderella Story yet, but especially because it's a Hilary Duff film, I'd expect there to be a lot of scathing comments. That's because Hilary Duff is, or was, at least, popular with tweens and teens, and lots of slightly older folks have a tendency to hate commercial or popular stuff just because it's commercial or popular. Of course, they find other ways to justify their effectively institutional hatred of this stuff, and I'd guess that the main complaint would be the clichéd and predictable nature of the material here.
And that's true. A Cinderella Story is clichéd and predictable, but that's not a great reason to dislike it. It is a Cinderella story, after all--it tells you right there in the title--retooled as a contemporary Los Angeles-area high school romance-comedy. We all know the Cinderella story fairly well. And any film fan at least old enough to almost be through with high school is surely familiar with the clichés of rom-coms and high school films. Most of us could write the basics of A Cinderella Story's plot without even seeing the film's trailer. So for adults, at least, A Cinderella Story is going to be successful or not dependent on how well it hikes its well-trodden path.
For me, the best material was the more traditional Cinderella-based stuff. Jennifer Coolidge (voluptuously) fills the role of the wicked stepmother. I like Coolidge a lot. She has tremendous charisma and performs her infamous, quirky sarcastic act here with verve. I also like Duff. The two actresses playing Duff's stepsisters were new to me, but just as charismatic as Coolidge. Director Mark Rosman quotes some of the cartoonish visual gags of Disney's Cinderella (1950) more than I expected, and it works amazingly well. It's one element that pushes the film into a welcomed, absurd-surreal territory.
What didn't work as well for me was the material when Rosman and credited writer Leigh Dunlap forgot about doing a pumped up remake of Cinderella. Too much of A Cinderella Story deals with Sam's (Duff) budding cyber-romance, her typical high school problems and the caricatured, stereotypical high school cliques. It's not that these other segments are bad, exactly, but they just don't have the spark or humor that the Cinderella material has, and especially for something like the cliques, we've seen this tens of times before. These scenes would be right at home if we edited them into any of those other films or television shows--sometimes I had to remind myself that I wasn't watching, say, a Cordelia scene from the first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).
So A Cinderella Story has a bit of a split personality--as a funny and wacky remake of Cinderella and as a far less humorous, pretty generic "getting through adolescence and finding yourself" message film. That After-School-Special-styled message may be a worthy one, but intercut with a great version of Cinderella, it doesn't quite fit, even though Rosman does finally start to find a unique and admirable groove while still alternating modes towards the end of the film.
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Can you pls upload Funky Monkey?