The movie version of Gail Carson Levine's wonderful Ella Enchanted is not exactly enchanting. The movie is cute and fun, but a real disappointment is comparison to the book and to the film that could have been made. Instead of going the Harry Potter route of being faithful to the book, and only changing bits here and there to accomadate the adaptation to a cinematic format, the studio went the typical "Hollywood" route. They dumbed it down a great deal ((because kids can't handle complexity, ya see) added anachronisms, fart jokes, and kung fu fighting. Important characters are changed, eliminated or as good as (what a waste of Parminder K. Nagra!) while a slew of useless new characers are added (a talking snake? an evil uncle? a wannabe lawyer elf?).

Very young children may enjoy the movie, please be sure to then go home and read them the book. OK?