On Sept. 3, a Cinderella remake landed on Amazon Prime. Camila Cabello plays a girl-bossing, career-driven, won’t-let-a-man-stand-in-her-way Cinderella in this star-studded version created and produced by talk show host, James Corden. 

I watched the movie the day it came out mainly because my childhood was based around the classic fairytale remakes of Selena Gomez, Hilary Duff and Lucy Hale, all the way to the Disney live-action remake in 2015 starring Lily James. At first, I was into the updated, feminist approach this movie took. Cabello did well, but some aspects of the movie were not up to par. Though I could probably talk about every minute detail about this movie, three characteristics stood out to me the most: the cast, the message and the music. Online reviews and scathing TikToks have revealed everyone has mixed reviews. So, let’s talk about it. 

At first glance, the cast of this movie seems amazing. Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel, Billy Porter, Minnie Driver, Pierce Brosnan, John Mulaney and James Corden are all well-known names which are sure to give this movie a lot of buzz. I didn’t have a problem with the cast of this movie, but I did have some problems with the characters the cast members played. Billy Porter is an icon and an amazing actor and singer, but in this movie he is only in one scene where his lines are basically limited to “yasss queen.” I love the idea of bringing a genderless or non-binary character into roles in these classic tales, but I feel like his character was missing depth. This isn’t Porter’s fault, but the writers and producers. 

This is an unpopular opinion according to other critics of the movie, but I liked Menzel’s stepmother character. I admired the fact they gave her a personality and a more human-based villianism. Though I wish she would have had more notes to belt with her incredible voice, the cinderella-stepmother relationship is one that sets this film apart from other remakes. 

This movie is definitely centered around women. Cabello with her girl-bossing, Menzel’s “evil-stepmother-with-a-backstory,” Tallulah Greive as a princess who wants to be king, and Driver, the quieted queen who learns to break out of her shell. I am a die-hard, raging feminist, so I thought this angle of a fairy tale would speak to me, but I was left wishing the writers had done more. While I completely support the modern take on this movie, Cinderella only succeeds at owning her shop because she got invited to the ball and had proximity to wealth, and the dress she wore and sold as her own wasn’t even made by her, her “Fab G” made it. I did admire the “princess wanting to be king” trope, and I thought Greive played this role well — she was actually my favorite character. However, I feel like so much more could have been said in regards to  feminist messages if the women had worked together to accomplish their goals. Maybe I’m being nit picky and cynical, and I know in a simple remake of Cinderella they’re not going to dramatically overthrow the flawed system, but they sure do talk about it in the movie. But in the end, the princess only seems to become queen because her brother doesn’t want to be king. I would’ve liked to see more women-supporting-women here. However, I did like the relationship between Ella and her stepsisters. It shows growth throughout the movie as they support each other. 

Lastly, the music in this movie stood out to me in the worst way. It’s a jukebox musical which seems to be inspired by the likes of Glee and Hamilton, but I just couldn’t get behind it. The song choices were average, and the execution much less than. To me, whenever any fairytale movie uses Queen’s “Somebody To Love” for a musical number all I can think of is Ella Enchanted. The “Material Girl” number was basic, but not the worst—, especially when compared to the “Whatta Man” and “Seven Nation Army” mashup at the ball scene. The writers seemed to choose the most overused songs and didn’t do anything unique with them. Then Cabello jumps in with an original song which was good, but I think it would’ve been so much better if the whole thing had either been original songs, or jukebox mashups — not a mixture of both. 

The town crier brought in Hamilton-esque rapping to the movie which also didn’t fit in with the rest of the movie. It felt like a collision of an early 2000s music video, broadway play and original songwriter all in one.“Strange” is the only word that comes to mind when thinking of the musical numbers that they chose for this movie.  One part I was pleased about— everyone could sing and could sing well. It was fun and upbeat, just a bit mediocre. TikTok was most angry about the music as well. Though TikTok is a well-known home of mockery, I thought some were too funny not to share. 

Overall, I’m glad I watched it, but I don’t think I will again. I respect the writers for what they tried to do with it, but it wasn’t done very well. Most of all, I wish it wasn’t a musical. But, those are just my opinions. Watch it for yourself  and find out if you feel the shoe fits.  

Featured image by Tara Phipps