Inexplicably, incomprehensibly, and almost impossibly, I went to see the new CG family film Strange Magic and I came away charmed. Based on reviews, I may be the only person who walked out of the movie with a smile. I suspect this movie will just get buried and forgotten… it’s the time of year, it’s the trailers that don’t do the movie justice, and it’s a little (for genre fans) that it’s a Lucasfilm production (a studio that doesn’t exactly knock out the hits).

What is Strange Magic? It looks like a 3rd rate remake of the CG Epic… which was itself a forgotten 3rd rate fantasy flick. It’s about good fairies and bad fairies, a good kingdom and a dark kingdom, it’s about love and love potions, and loving people despite who they are, and the immorality of love potions… the story isn’t strong, but the storytelling is.

The first quarter or so of the movie wasn’t doing much for me but I’ll admit that maybe that was my attitude going in talking. Because this really is an immensely charming, very cute, completely adorable, and maybe if it doesn’t work on you, completely sappy movie. I was won over by how it presents love and romance and how it’s not some big dumb action movie because that’ll get the boys into the theater. The amount of time this movie spends convincing us of a romance in it was really surprising and really sweet. And completely surprising. And maybe even convincing… maybe even mature.

But it’s not all sappy (ahem… charming) romance… the movie is completely aware that it’s nearing sap territory and manages to subvert the usual fairy tale cliches. It does so in a way far more subtle than the Shrek films… it’s hard to see that at the start but eventually it kicks in. The movie is all about love potions and fairy-tale princesses who are boy crazy at the start and I got this sinking feeling that we were dealing with nothing but cliches and this movie was going for the standard issue old timey Disney princess story (all the girl needs is a strong handsome man… time to swoon!). Then one of the fairy princesses catcher her fiance cheating on her and she turns dark and broody and I thought we were going to be dealing with cliche riot grrl power stuff cliches instead. But the movie isn’t that simple… yes the warrior princess character wears armor, learns to swing a sword, and has dark eye shadow but the movie still subverts those cliches as well. And, yes, does give us a strong female lead. And yes she does get the guy but it’s on far more equal terms than most cartoons present.

I dunno… I’m no doubt overselling this movie and I’m fairly sure anyone else seeing it might walk away bored by another generic CG cartoon kids movie. I’d almost understand that… but I’m a pretty cynical dude and I walked away really charmed.

Fair warning time… the movie is musical mashup flick… it’s songs are all pop, R&B, and rock song covers… kind of like Ella Enchanter…. or Glee. This is offputting at first and then the movie gets clever and starts using the idea well. Here we get Fools Rush In, Strange Magic (derp), Can’t Help Falling In Love, Wild Thing, Crazy in Love, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, etc. None of this is done any better than what you might get out of glee but the way the songs are used (if not performed) is very good (at least in the second half).

So, there ya go. I’m not sure who I’d recommend this film to. People with young children might take them and they might enjoy it or they might get restless. I can’t say. But I think, if they were a little older, they might find a movie that says something deeper about love and romance than the average such film… which you might argue Frozen (and Maleficent) did but this movie did it by suggesting true love can be more than just between sisters or family but can be between equals…

Oversold much? Jeesh. I need to go see a dark brooding horror or action movie and write about that to get some cred back :-p

Score: 86