Review: A Cinderella Story (* 1/2)

A CINDERELLA STORY
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2


Instant messaging, as in dexterous teens typing furiously with their thumbs
on their cell phones, is a solitary visual that is deadly dull on the
screen. Yes, similar activities with just the right script and the right
cast -- think Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in YOU'VE GOT MAIL -- can be good, but
it's hard to make such computer activities cinematically interesting.



A CINDERELLA STORY, which could have been titled YOU'VE GOT INSTANT
MESSAGES, features Hilary Duff as a Cinderella named Sam. Duff ("Lizzie
McGuire") is the movie's only drawing card, but the movie never manages to
tap into her large reservoir of charm. She does okay in the movie, but the
performance is way below her capabilities.



Leigh Dunlap's by-the-numbers script just takes the Cinderella story and
transplants it to the San Fernando Valley. About the only major twist is
that our modern day Cinderella drops her cell phone rather than her slippers
when midnight arrives at the big dance, a Halloween costume ball. Jennifer
Coolidge gives one of her typically irritating performances as Sam's evil
stepmother.



In a slapstick movie filled with pratfalls, Madeline Zima and Andrea Avery
play Sam's evil stepsisters, Brianna and Gabriella. Typical of the movie's
humor is the scene in a car wash that has Brianna and Gabriella fighting
each other while getting soaped up, waxed down and, finally, blow dried.
It's a scene that you've seen many times before.



Austin (Chad Michael Murray), Sam's "prince," is the captain of the football
team, the president of the student body and the boyfriend of the head
cheerleader, Shelby (Julie Gonzalo). Sam originally met Austin in a chat
room for students wanting to go to Princeton. (They don't know each other
at first since their real identities were hidden in the chat room.)
Austin's dad wants him to be a football player at USC and then come home to
run the family car wash business, while Austin dreams of going to Princeton
and becoming a writer.



The lackluster comedy switches to a message movie in the last act but is
never convincing. The ending, set at the big football game, is equal
measures predictable and ridiculous.



A CINDERELLA STORY runs 1:26. It is rated PG for "mild language and
innuendo" and would be acceptable for kids of all ages.



My son Jeffrey, age 15, thought that there wasn't much to the movie but he
still kind of liked it and gave it ** 1/2. He liked Duff in it.



The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.



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