Starring: Kimberly Williams {Virginia Lewis}, Scott Cohen {Wolf}, John Larroquette {Tony Lewis}, Dianne Weist {Evil Queen}, Daniel Lapaine {Prince Wendell}, Ed O'Neill {Relish the Troll King}, Rutger Hauer {Huntsman}, Dawnn Lewis {Bladderwort the Troll}, Hugh O'Gorman {Burly the Troll}, Jeremiah Birkett {Blue Bell the Troll}, Warwick Davis {Acorn the Dwarf}, and Camryn Manheim {Snow White}.
Year of Release: 1999.
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling, Action/Adventure, Romance, Humorous, Miniseries.
Plot: Virginia Lewis, unmarried and in her mid-twenties, lives with her father, Tony Lewis, who is a janitor in an apartment overlooking Central Park, New York. Thinking her life is going nowhere, Virginia has built a shell around herself and goes through her mundane life as a waitress daydreaming of someday meeting a man who is into food and opening a restaurant with him. Her father, meanwhile, complains about his job and his boss and doesn't seem to take notice of much else that happens outside his own little bubble of a world. When Virginia hits a stray dog with her bicycle one evening on her way to work, a series of events is set into motion that changes everything Virginia and Tony have ever known.
The dog which Virginia takes in after her little run-in with him is actually Prince Wendell who was turned into a dog by his evil stepmother who was released from prison by an ugly troll and his three stupid children. Fleeing in terror from the witch, the prince had jumped through a magical mirror that is actually a portal to the Tenth Kingdom {Central Park}. Knowing that the trolls are practically useless, the witch releases one of the prison inmates, an amusing yet rather confusing character named Wolf, and sends him through the portal to track the dog down. When he learns that the dog is with Virginia he tracks the girl down and instantly falls in love with her {she hits him over the head with a flower vase and runs away}. Virginia, Tony, the dog and Wolf all meet up again in the park and plunge through the portal; once on the other side, Virginia is captured by the idiotic trolls and Tony is locked up in the prison. Seemingly to have completely forgotten about his agreement with the witch, Wolf goes dashing off to rescue Virginia and then her father and the dog before agreeing to help them look for the mirror so they can get back home.
While they scamper about two of the nine kingdoms looking for the mirror and having several exciting adventures along the way, the witch tries to track them down and keep the troll king under control. Wolf falls deeper in love with Virginia as each trial is encountered and overcome yet he is torn as to which side of the impending battle he is on while Virginia focuses on returning home though she begins to trust and then like Wolf as her protective wall slowly crumbles around her. Each of the three main characters is tempted and tested in an area where they are weak with Wolf's test being the most dramatic by far and each come out with unique and varying results. But the hardest test has yet to be met and it is doubtful whether anyone, particularly Virginia, will be able to survive the blow.
Likes/Dislikes: There were about four or five comments that made my parents and I cringe yet which seemed to have gone over my youngest brothers' heads {thankfully} that really didn't need to be in the movie. It is implied that Virginia is pregnant at the end of the movie although she and Wolf are not married. There is also a section of the movie that takes place in a village inhabited with several shepherdesses who were very provoking and scantily clad {for a shepherdess}. Virginia has an argument with her father toward the middle of the movie and says she hates him yet they make up shortly afterward and at the beginning Tony is very selfish and the whole sequence in the apartment with him trying to deal with the six wishes he was granted via the trickster Wolf really wasn't necessary to the plot. There is also a good bit of magic though that was sadly expected {it is a retelling of fairy tales after all}. However, I found it to be a pretty good movie overall and enjoyed it a lot; Wolf was particularly hilarious!
Rating: PG-12 and up although I strongly advise parents to view this before their children if they or the children are sensitive to some of the above mentioned issues.
Date Report Written: April 8, 2011.
4 comments:
What, praytell, was the "sadly expected" magic and why was it sad?
Uhhh, oh! I remember now! {sorta} The magic was "sadly expected" because it's a fairytale retelling; it mostly had to do with the magic mirrors through which the characters went to end up in the kingdoms, the witch spying on everyone with magic mirrors and something else I can't remember. It was sad because I don't like magic and felt it would have been just as good if not better if there hadn't been any. ;)
But your novel was full of magic, at least of magical creatures and such. Or do you mean that it was too much like sorcery?
My novel was full of mythical creatures. Like, Rumble didn't go around mind-reading anyone nor were there any guys trying to catch him for his "magical" blood or anything like that. I just generally don't like movies with a lot of magic in them. I liked this movie but not the magic. *shrugs*
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