‘Steps’ Review: Amanda Seyfried and Ali Wong in Alt-Animated ‘Cinderella’

There are undoubtedly worse ways for families to spend a few hours together during Thanksgiving, but sorry to the adults forced to keep kids company through Netflix’s cloying, candy-colored musical fantasy, Measures. Both busy and slow, aggressively modern and tired, this charmless building Cinderella The makeover wastes the considerable talents of a star-studded voice on lame dialogue laced with unfunny humor in a version of the classic fairy tale so convoluted that simply following the plot becomes a chore.

Produced by Amy Poehler and co-directed by Alyce Tzue and John Ripa, Measures takes on once-radical, now-familiar tropes like the antagonist as hero and the bonds of brotherhood trumping conventional romance. In other words, ho hum. The screenplay is credited to five writers and the story to six, from the folk comedy duo Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, who go by the professional name of Garfunkel and Oates. This disproportionate assemblage nourishes the impression of a project cobbled together by committee, sucking any spark, spontaneity or emotional elevation from the material.

The central idea is that Cinderella’s stepsisters are not evil, but simply misunderstood. Teenage punk Lilith (Ali Wong) is determined to set the record straight on what she calls the tale’s “character assassination” by carving out her own “happily ever after,” while her younger sister Margot (Stephanie Hsu) is too sweet and innocent to be tainted by this traditional tradition; she loves everyone, especially frogs.

When their seamstress mother Li Mei (Gwendoline Yeo) falls in love and takes them to the Kingdom of Alouette, Lilith sees it as a place she could finally belong. Mom’s new husband, Edmund (Matt Lowe), is kind and welcoming, as is her cheerful daughter Cinderella (Amanda Seyfried), with whom they strike up a quick friendship. But the sisters’ cheongsams and black hair instantly mark them as outsiders in their new macaron-colored surroundings, at odds with the dominant French rococo aesthetic of the 18th century. The abundance of pink hurt my eyes.

The biggest obstacle comes when they accompany Cinderella to a tea party hosted by Priscilla (Nikki Glaser), a vain and mean girl, whose parents have placed her under the hyper-protective care of the sinister butler Roderick (Peter Dinklage). When Lilith begins to entertain the other guests with an exotic folk tale, Priscilla perceives a threat to her dominance over the Queen Bee. She tricks Lilith and Margot into entering a closed storm drain, where she locks them. Cinderella is torn between loyalty to her abused stepsisters and pressure from the popular kids. Naturally, she adheres to the latter, which sows the festering seed of Cinderella’s betrayal.

Cinderella, moreover, is not condemned to a life of drudgery here. Instead, she obsessively cleans the house for her own pleasure, aided by a happy assortment of forest creatures. Either she’s a pathological neat freak or she saw Amy Adams in Delighted a hundred times, it doesn’t matter much.

When members of the court hand out invitations to a royal ball, Lilith and Margot are excluded from the list, to Priscilla’s gleeful mockery. They resign themselves to spending a quiet night at home while the rest of the town celebrates. But when Lilith sees Cinderella dressed for the ball by her fairy godmother (Bette Midler), who has spent her life planning the girl’s marriage to the handsome Prince Alouette (Daniel Radcliffe), she hatches a plan of her own.

This involves grabbing the Fairy Godmother’s wand and creating your own gothic-glamorous fantasy. Arriving in a black skull-shaped carriage that seems straight out of Tim Burton, Lilith and Margot crash the ball and liven up the party until disaster strikes.

When it looks like Cinderella in her glass slippers has sewn the royal wedding, the perfidious Priscilla grabs the wand. Priscilla uses her new magic to convince the prince that she is his one true love, thus shattering the fairy tale. She places the vicious Roderick – adopting Tom Cruise’s sprinting style, characterized by intense concentration and rigid hands cutting through the air – on the heels of Cinderella, Lilith and Margot, who transform into a talking frog during the confusion.

Will Cinderella be able to go back in time and arrive at the Prince’s house before midnight, in time to prove that she is the one? Will she and Lilith manage to resolve their differences and discover the rewards of true brotherhood? Will Margot regain human form before losing herself as a frog? And will Lilith stumble upon her own true love when their journey through the woods takes them to the home of a handsome troll named Gef (Young Mazino), hunted by his evil brother Craktor (WWE star Damian Priest) for being too soft-hearted?

The answers are obvious, but Tzue and Ripa spend an awful lot of time getting there as the forest odyssey drags on and the film becomes more stubbornly unmagical by the minute.

It’s a pleasure to hear Seyfried’s crystal clear vocals on Justin Trantor’s original songs, and Midler is no stranger to cracking. But distinguished voices generally don’t give much to make their characters endearing, much less enchanting.

Asian elements can be found in the character designs of K-animation and Disney, with lots of round faces and saucer-shaped eyes, making it look like Netflix is ​​trying to ride the market. Demon Hunters KPop wave; and to a poppy end credits song from Blackpink member Jennie. But cross-cultural differences are too timidly explored to gain any traction, ultimately seeming rather random and giving Measures an atmosphere more ersatz than original. However, children – young girls in particular – should be content with it.