I was a bit surprised at several aspects of this particular theatre experience. First, the movie was rated G and I don't remember a single kid being in the auditorium. Most people in the audience were adult females, and the movie drew very good attendance for a Thursday night. Sitting through a 7 PM showing of a G movie without hearing to constantly hear little kids cry was amazing, and very enjoyable.
I liked the movie. It had plenty of humor without having to rely on crude jokes. The dinner scene was hilarious, although one of the jokes (the people at the table imitating her after she'd taken a huge bite of that green ice cream type stuff) was remarkably similar to a scene from the Three Stooges episode "Termites of 1938", where the big wig everyone at the dinner was there to see didn't know proper American table etiquette and decided to keep an eye on the "college chaps" (actually exterminators (Stooges)) and he emulated everything they did, and then everyone else did too. I hadn't seen that type of gag anywhere else until this movie. In this movie, only 3 people imitate, though.
Part of the story, making her look and act like a princess, reminded me a lot of the FBI agent becoming a beauty pageant participant in Miss Congeniality.
The house (rebuilt fire department station) was really cool.
The audience laughed a lot and really seemed to enjoy this movie. I still can't beleive there were no kids. Maybe adults are looking for more "tame humor" in their movies?
The presentation quality was excellent, scoring a "100" in my web site ratings system.
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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site
Brief Summary: Good film, essentially a Cinderella story. Basic plot with slightly wooden acting at the beginning but does improve. Good performances by Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. Just shows that you don't need a PG rating for a film to be good.
7/10 stars - take the family
cheers Peter
I wanted to respond to Evan's comment about the dinner scene - I have seen that part. The 'emulation' gag also reminded me of a classic scene in the Jacques Tati film, 'M. Hulot's Holiday' in which M. Hulot buys a tennis raquet from a store. The shop assistant who sells him the racquet makes an odd movement with it, presumably to show him how well balanced and light it is. He thinks that that's how he has to use the racquet to serve the ball, and proceedes to do this...before long, everyone on the court is doing the same thing. By all means, check out this film if you haven't seen it - there's an excellent Criterion Collection DVD of it, as well as another Tati film called, 'Mon Oncle', which is also hilarious.
