Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002)
Genre: Family/Animation Time: 1h 13min Director: John Kafka
Quick Summary: Cinderella finds it difficult to adjust to her new life after marriage. Later, Jaq is turned into a human and lives as Cinderella's page boy while Anastasia, Cinderella's stepsister, finds true love.
This was very much an obvious cash grab, but I still enjoyed this.
Okay to start off, this film is three short stories all shoved together that are barely connected and are very much disjointed. They're all kinda weak, except the last one. This film is good for mindless entertainment as I did find it rather cute at times.
The first one has Cinderella organize a party on her own. That made her clash with others in the palace, but other than that interesting storytelling possibility, the end result is boring and far from substantial. I do think it was supposed to get the message across, don't change yourself for anyone and that it's okay to change traditions, which would have been nice if we fully got that.
The second one is all about Jaq becoming big. I like the mice and they were cute here with Jaq being once again very well developed, but this entire story was too silly and childish. It's so desperate for any kind of drama that it feels less like one-third of a pilot for a show than an episode written deep into its run after all the good and then passable ideas had been burned off.
As for the third segment, I didn't mind it. Anastasia falling in love with a baker and Lady Tremaine disapproving would have been maybe okay on its own if they stuck that as the 2nd film and really developed it. It feels like a missed chance, and it's so sad seeing how underdeveloped this plotline was.
Cinderella II features good animation for sure as it looks polished and modern with the characters being designed faithfully. However, the structure and pacing are terrible while the soundtrack is atrocious with every single musical number being unnecessary and utterly mediocre and forgettable. The colours are still bright, and cheerful and there is plenty of action to keep the younger viewers interested.
I think it might have had good intentions as all three segments have good messages at their core, it just failed to get them across properly. The characters are very one-dimensional and don't have much to them.
5/10
"I was a dish maid when the prince married me. And he loves me because I'm me."
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