Enchanted by Paul Bullock

Once upon a time there lived a man named Walt. He was a young, ambitious man, who dreamed of making it big in the medium of motion pictures and, more specifically, animated motion pictures. All the ugly sisters in the fiendish world of Hollywood mocked young Walt, but it was he who had the last laugh when his first full-length animated feature - about a mythical princess and her miniature helpers - did not break the dreaming man and his youthful studio as many predicted, but actually made it. More great animated yarns followed and children everywhere were charmed by stories of flying elephants, orphaned deers and wooden boys. But once Walt passed on, the glory days were gone and the magical formula became lost beneath the sands of time and scorn of rivals, whose big green ogres mocked Walt's innocent ways. But now, the corporation which bears his name is back and ready to take their enemies on with a film which also pokes fun at their history. Can director Kevin Lima pull the sword from the stone and bring happiness back to the magic kingdom?

The answer is a great big unqualified yes. Enchanted begins with what has become a rare sight of late: two dimensional animation. Flat, glorious two dimensional animation, which is used to introduce us to Giselle (Amy Adams in voice here and flesh later), a classic Disney princess who, as her opening song - the sweet, lilting ballad True Love's Kiss - explains, is looking for one thing: a handsome, dashing prince. Thankfully, there's one just around the corner in the shape of troll-killing buffoon Edward (James Marsters). Sadly though he has been kept from meeting her for years by his duplicitous mother (Susan Sarandon, on top panto villain form), a beautiful queen who, in the true Disney tradition, can transform into a hideous apple-wielding crone at the click of a finger and has a villainous henchman in the form of Timothy Spall's lovestruck Nathaniel.

These opening scenes are heartening for those of us who still insist that 2D animation has a future. While it lacks the depth and detail of, say, Bambi (but then, what does have that level of beauty?) and has clearly had some of its rougher edges cleaned up by computer (thus giving it a slightly too-perfect sheen), the animation on display here is warm and textured, reminding you of how good it feels to watch something that has been laboriously created by human hand, rather than the cold pixelated claw of technology. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s something of a let down when the wicked Queen finally has her way with Giselle and transports her to a place where "happily-ever-afters don't exist": modern-day, real-world Manhattan. Alone and confused in a foreign land, she stumbles into the lives of single parent divorce lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his wide-eyed daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). But can true love conquer all and everyone live happily ever after?

Part of the joy of Enchanted is that it genuinely leaves you guessing as to whether they will or not. This may be a fairy tale meant for kids, but it has a refreshingly adult take on relationships, so much so that it's not just one of the best kids films of the year, but also one of the more convincing romantic comedies. From the very start, we want Giselle and Robert to get together, but his long-term girlfriend Nancy (Idina Minzel) isn't the bitch we'd expect, just a normal woman who is understandably a little upset when a mysterious princess appears in her man's life. Edward too is a sympathetic figure. Buffoonish he may be, but he's no clone of Shrek’s Prince Charming, merely a fish-out-of-water figure who is living life the way he's always been told to. Even Nathanial, who is hopelessly committed to the evil queen, gets some respect, meaning Enchanted has a richness - perhaps even complexity - to its romance that makes it a rewarding watch for adults.

Also helping the grown-ups justify their admission price is the wry humour and neat twists on fairy tale life, which include buses being mistaken for trolls and vermin replacing forest life as Giselle’s animal friends. But make no mistake, this is a cut-and-dry children’s film, a fact which plays a big part in its charm. Thanks to the success of pictures like Shrek and Madagascar, truly child-orientated kids films have been hard to come by of late. Most animated features have attempted to play to adult audiences as well as kids, by spiking their innocent stories with pop culture references and postmodern jokes that no child would ever have a hope of comprehending (Sharks Tale‘s riffs on Goodfellas were particularly bizarre). From start to finish, though, Enchanted aims pretty much exclusively at a youthful audience and its rite of passage story (which is very similar to Pinocchio, Bambi and Dumbo) means it has an emotional centre that will speak directly to them.

Helping this along is a sweet, but never patronising, turn from Amy Adams. We can only speculate as to whether the actress went all method and actually jumped into a cartoon, but we wouldn't be surprised if she did. She has clearly studied all the classic Disney films of old, nailing the physical and vocal tics of a cartoon character, to give what - and we kid you not here - is one of the best performances of the year. In a Disney princess film! It may sound like your critic has gone temporarily insane, but consider this. Adams has to portray a real, living and breathing human character who the audience can relate to. However, at the same time, she has to be a larger than life, full-of-beans cartoon princess who we‘re supposed to be finding absurd and silly. Play it too large and you lose the audience, play it too realistic and you lose the character. That she’s catered to both these needs means - and again, we’re not kidding you here - she really should be considered by the Academy for next year’s ceremony and is all but a shoe-in for the Comedy and Musical section of the Golden Globes.

Dempsey and Marsters also give great turns, while Sarandon is a joy as the evil Queen. But it's Disney who emerge as the stars of the show. After they closed down their 2D wing following 2004's cow feature Home on the Range, it seemed like the end of an era. At that point, Disney was a studio whose very reason for being had been eliminated and was now happy simply to fall back on uninspired live-action features like The Princess Diaries, cinematic adaptations of their theme park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean) and the masterpieces of their partners Pixar. What Enchanted proves, however, is that they can still produce great, perhaps even classic, entertainment that reinvents the staples of old, without mocking or undermining them. So, finally, it seems that after years in the wilderness, Disney will live happily ever after, after all. And frankly, despite all their problems, we wouldn't have it any other way.