What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that although kids may want to see this animated fairy tale "reimagining," it's not really worth their time. The movie revises the Cinderella story in order to let the "bad guys" win ... for a minute. This results in some minor violence, much dastardly laughter, and temporary changes to familiar fairy tale plots (Rumplestiltskin steals the baby, Sleeping Beauty doesn't wake up, etc.). Many genre cliches are played out here: The wicked stepmother is mean, her daughters are obnoxious, the prince is dimwitted, and wolves, trolls, and the giant are ugly and lumbering. There's a little bit of potty humor, and a couple of none-too-menacing scenes in the dark woods. The cartoony violence primarily consists of falls and inconsequential explosions (no one dies).

Families can discuss the film's premise -- that all fairy tales follow a basic plot and might need to be invigorated. How would you change the plots of these familiar stories? Is there another way to change the ending without focusing on "good" and "evil" characters? How does Rick's point of view affect the movie? What might happen if Ella didn't decide to like him in the end? What do you think happens to Ella's stepsisters? What other movies have covered similar territory? What makes this one better/worse than those?

Common Sense Media Review
In HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER, the usual balance of Fairy Tale Land has gone awry ... very, very awry, if this dismal movie is any indication. While it seems inclined toward Shrek -iness, it ends up being not much more than a string of fairy tale-derived scenes that have little to do with one another (until, at last, it ends).

The movie begins with a snarky voiceover by lowly dishwasher Rick ( Freddie Prinze Jr.), who describes the situation -- a variation on Cinderella . Wicked stepmother Frieda ( Sigourney Weaver) has grown weary of always "losing" the battle between good and evil in her much-repeated story. Seeking redress, she seizes the magical staff belonging to the wizard ( George Carlin) and declares herself the winner. She wants to live in the palace and enjoy a "happy ending" (considering that she appears incapable of happiness, that part's a little fuzzy).

Rick's narration is colored by his own desire for Frieda's lovely servant girl/stepdaughter, Ella (Prinze Jr.'s wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar). But since she feels compelled to follow the plot of "the book" dutifully and repeatedly, she only has eyes for lunkheaded, big-chested Prince Humperdinck ( Patrick Warburton). (He, for one, has no problem with his role, as he's able to admire himself as others do.) Only resentful Rick seems capable of imagining another option -- at least until he feels rejected by Ella, at which point the plot takes a pause while Rick sulks.

Frieda is more proactive, calling together assorted villains -- trolls, wolves, witches, and a giant -- in order to thwart Ella's happy ending (if Frieda can't think of what she wants, she at least knows what she doesn't want). And she pretty easily ejects the wizard's ineffective assistants, Munk and Mambo (Wallace Shawn and Andy Dick), who are left in charge while the boss man goes on a golfing vacation.

Oddly lackadaisical, Happily N'Ever After also has shoddy animation and an uninspired soundtrack. Everyone involved apparently worked only halftime: Weaver's evil cackle seems on a loop, a singing duet by Prinze and Gellar sounds like it was recorded on a four-track in someone's basement, and the wizard literally appears for two minutes at film's start before he smartly abandons the movie. You'll wish you had the good sense to walk out with him.

Viewers might want to cleanse their palates by revisiting the ever-enchanting The Princess Bride or a few of the other animated films that this one wishes it could be -- like Shrek or The Emperor's New School . Or take the straight fairy tale route and see Beauty and the Beast .