LAST year, I complained repeatedly about the deluge of animated features with talking critters. Well, “Happily N’Ever After,” an ugly, unfunny, headache-inducing fairy-tale spoof, is not exactly what I’d call an improvement.
The ads proclaim “From the Producer of ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’,” which may be technically true.
But those films’ numerous other producers may want to seriously consider legal action, given the extremely cheesy-looking animation in “Happily,” which is from the same outfit that gave us “Valiant,” an excruciating cartoon version of World War II starring carrier pigeons.
Most of the characters in the new movie are more or less human, beginning with Cinderella (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who is generally referred to as Ella, as she was in the torturous “Ella Enchanted” a few years ago.
Ella’s pursuit of the lunkhead Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton) is interrupted en route to its happy ending when her wicked, hypersexual stepmother Frieda (Sigourney Weaver, way over the top even for a cartoon character) takes charge of a wizard’s staff that governs everything in fairy-tale land.
Soon, Rapunzel is being yanked out of her tower by the hair and another prince falls asleep after kissing Sleeping Beauty.
Spunky Ella sets out to straighten out things with a little help from the Seven Dwarfs and Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the servant to Prince Charming who has long pined after her.
The screenplay attributed to Rob Moreland is charmless, weakly plotted, overbearing and nowhere near as witty as “Hoodwinked,” another cheaply-produced cartoon that was a surprise hit a year ago.
“I hate to tell you, but it gets worse,” one character promises midway through “Happily N’Ever After.” No kidding.
HAPPILY N’EVER AFTER
Child abuse.
Running time: 85 minutes. Rated PG (action violence, mild rude humor). At the E-Walk, the Orpheum, the Coliseum, others.