With over 10 remakes of “Cinderella,” there is yet another, released on Sept. 3, 2021, and many Disney fans were excited to see it coming out. Unfortunately, a sizable percentage of us were also disappointed with the end result, including me. Despite being the same adored story, It drifted far away from the other modifications of it. 

To start, we have the prime family, The Tremains. Vivian Tremaine (Idina Menzel), Anastasia (Maddie Baillio), Drizella (Charlotte Spencer) and Ella (Camilla Cabello), and I must say, Camilla did not fit this role. She does not look, act or sound anything like the initial character.  I know things will be adapted to a redo of the movie, but I feel they could have done better choosing their final actors. 

The movie begins as usual, Ella’s father marries the stepmother yet when he unexpectedly dies, Ella becomes a servant in her own house, but something about the movie changed. They turned it into a jukebox musical, and I was not fond of it.

They sang several pop songs, one of which they wouldn’t leave alone. This was a classic Camilla Cabello song, “Million to one,” and they sang it three times. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible song, but to sing it for every time you’re not allowed to do something is absurd. For instance, at the beginning of the movie when seeing herself in the future as a fashion designer. Another time she wasn’t allowed to attend the royal ball, so she sang that song while crying. It got a bit annoying after the second time.

The main storyline goes on for Ella desiring to be a fashion designer so she doesn’t have to live in her stepmother’s basement, but everyone tells her it’s not possible. She decides to prove them wrong, so she makes a dress and sells it in the small village they live in. In the end, someone does buy it, but it’s not someone she thought.  

I thought it was pretty obvious, but I guess that’s how the story goes. 

Sometime earlier, the Tremain family goes to the meeting of the royal family. We have King Rowan (Pierce Brosnan), Queen Beatrice (Minnie Driver) and what he goes by “the king’s idiot son” (Nicholas Galitzine) but really his name is Prince Robert. 

And, of course, the prince and Ella are love interests. 

They have a lot of bumps in the “getting to know each other” part of their relationship, once Ella finally understands she can be with him and be a fashion designer. It got suspenseful waiting to see how they would find each other again, but it was amusing. Plus, all of the minor changes they make to the characters and their actions are fun to watch. For example, instead of Cinderella losing her shoe on the stairs, she takes it off to throw at a guard and run from the ball. It was pretty funny. 

Ella, as I said above, still goes to the ball with the help of her fairy godmother that suddenly appeared from a butterfly. At the end of the night, she only has only a small amount of time to get home before the magic wears off of her outfit and her family recognizes her again, but when she gets home her plan of the night completely falls apart. But this is what, once again, brought her and her future husband back together. 

The scene that pretty much ends the story stuck out to me. Vivian had started realizing her wrongs towards Ella. She admitted she was always hard on her and I think it’s a very good start to the development of relationships. This happened with many other characters as well, such as King Rowan and Prince Robert, Drizella, Anastasia and more which I was happy with. I believe it makes the ending of a story much better.

Altogether, I really do believe this movie was poorly executed compared to other remakes. The acting was not as good as expected, nor was the cast, and I think they could’ve added more plot to other characters as well. It seems to have taken away some of the narratives and added them to Ella, although she is the main character. Though this movie was entertaining, it certainly wasn’t my favorite, and the 1950 animated film will continue being my first pick.