[4.1/10] How is a movie this iconic also this bad? You’d have to have been locked in a tower for the last seventy years not to know about the glass slippers, the evil stepmother, the pumpkin carriage, the charming prince, bibbidi bobbidi boo, the mean stepsister, the stroke of midnight, the fairy godmother, the towering castle, and all the other pieces of *Cinderella* ephemera that have become holy within the “culture of Disney.” Surely a movie so woven into the fabric of American animation has some claim to greatness, or at least some redeeming qualities.

The unfortunate response is that I am hard-pressed to think of any. This is a boring, annoying, overlong waste of celluloid that must possess some bewitching charms I am mysteriously immune to. It’s a strange combination of a fairy tale, a funny animal cartoon, and a wacky comedy where a dad tries to marry off his son to the first pair of X chromosomes he can find in the hopes of collecting a couple of grandchildren before he kicks the bucket. It is a loud, dull, tonally off-balance movie below the studio’s usual standards in almost every respect.

Its positives are few. There are a couple of good setups and payoffs, whether it's the title character's pre-established propensity to lose her footwear, or the classical rivalry among the dog, cat, and mice reaching a crescendo in the climax. As random and almost schizophrenic as *Cinderella* feels at times, it at least has the good sense to plant a few seeds that it intends to harvest by the end of the movie.

What’s more, Cinderella herself, why still a little generic, has a little extra sass and pathos to her. It’s not much -- usually just a light mocking tone or fumbled request for a dress from her spritely benefactor -- but it’s enough to give her a personality. And however nonsensical it may be, the eponymous princess-to-be producing the other glass slipper generously counts as a mildly clever twist as the movie teases the audience before the final payoff. Those are, sadly, the only elements in the movie that rise above the level of “reasonably competent.”

The songs here are dull and unmemorable, with even the brain-beating repetition of childhood viewings and Disney “brand deposits” failing to elevate to a point beyond “Yeah, I think I vaguely recall that one.” They’re repetitive and humdrum, with tepid melodies and dimestore lyrics.

Likewise, the animation is surprisingly unexceptional. None of it sinks to the level of bad. There’s even a few bits, like CInderella’s bubble brigade or famous dress transformation or her dance with the prince, that stand out as worth taking note of. But for the most part, everything we see is either flat and uninteresting or standard issue cartoon over-exaggeration. There’s none of the superlative designs or movements in preceding releases like *Pinocchio* or later ones like *Sleeping Beauty*. For a studio known for its wondrous animation, “capably done” is an insult.

But the biggest malady is that it’s not clear what the movie really wants to be. Nominally, it’s the story of a preternaturally good-hearted young girl overcoming the oppression of her step-family to see her vaunted dreams come true. That’s the film’s best mode, if only because Cinderella is the closest thing to a real character in the movie, so seeing her struggle and ultimately win the day, however threadbare that story may ultimately be, is the most compelling thing in the picture.

But there’s still tons of problems with that story. The biggest is that Cinderella’s step family is cartoonishly awful and evil. Maybe that’s OK considering that this is a cartoon, but it becomes tough to really empathize with Cinderella and her problems when they seem so over the top and ridiculous. Likewise, the prince is basically a concept rather than a character, with little more than a dance and a “Wow, she’s hot!” moment to make the two a couple. There’s no there there to any of this, just broad strokes ideas that Cinderella’s in bad straits and yearns for some kind of salvation.

The force of that predicament is watered down by the fact that it’s counterbalanced by a goofy storyline where the king harrangues his poor duke/advisor to help him plot to marry off his son. It’s yet another hopelessly dumb and over the top element in the movie, with bed-jumping swordplay and mustached ninnies changing color and a zany threats to send the duke to meet his maker if he doesn’t sufficiently see to the success of the king’s wacky scheme.

Even that is preferable to the scads of pointless filler in the form of zany mouse adventures that permeate the film. There’s a weird timidness to *Cinderella*, as though the studio was afraid a straight fairytale wouldn’t sell and so tried to pack-in what amounts to a series of *Tom and Jerry*-style shorts into the picture. Why this tale needs a pack of rodents trying to swipe corn pellets from chickens, or teasing and evading a malevolent cat, or heaving a key out of the strange backside pocket of Lady Tremaine is beyond me.

They’re a big part of arguably the movie’s greatest sins -- most of the characters are just plain annoying. The mice, with their squeaky garbled voices and half-english are a collection of irksome half-wits who aren’t fit to wipe the paws of better cat-and-mouse teams. The step sisters are at least supposed to be pestersome, but exceed the bounds of “annoy the protagonist” into the unfortunate land of “annoy the audience.” The king and his advisor are charmless wackos. Even in Disney’s more scattershot releases, there’s usually fun figures to latch onto, but *Cinderella* is all but devoid of characters worth appreciating, let alone embracing.

Maybe the power of the central idea is just too strong to be weighed down by all that cinematic detritus. If there’s an animating idea to the Disney company, it’s that if you wish for something with all your heart, and stay good and true to who you are despite hardships, then magical things can happen. It’s an appealing notion, one that may justifiably linger beyond imbecile vermine and bland tunes.

But all these decades later, when that idea has been deconstructed and rebuilt and subverted time and time again, it’s just not enough on its own anymore. We need the fantastical figures, the splendid animation, the melodies, movements and magic that defined the studio’s legendary output. All *Cinderella* can offer is fifteen minutes of something decent over the course of a seventy-five minute film. Regardless of when the studio’s fairy godmothers cast their spells to try to turn this shabby production into a winning feature, the clock has long since struck midnight.