From the mind of George Lucas, “Strange Magic“, can be described in two words: strange and magical. Literally.
The new animated movie is a madcap fairy tale musical inspired by Shakespeare’s, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The movie introduces you to a helpless romantic, fairy princess named Marianne (Evan Rachel Wood), who is madly in love with her husband to be Roland (Sam Palladio). On the day of her wedding day, she finds out Roland has been cheating on her and isn’t in love with anyone but himself, the crown, and his hair. Marianne decides from the day on that she will never trust or fall in love with anyone again. Her main purpose was to hover and care for her flirtatious sister Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull).
On the other side of the forest, the dark side, is controlled by the “beastly” Bog King (Alan Cumming), who wants nothing to do with love. The dark side has special flower petals that can be turned into love potions by the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristen Chenoweth). The Bog King has the Sugar Plum Fairy captured and wants all the love petals gone because he never wants another love potion to be made after he had a disastrous incident happen to him.
Roland and Sunny (Elijah Kelley) agree to make a love potion together to make the ones they love love them, Marianne and Dawn. The Bog King finds out the love potion was made and attacked Marianne’s kingdom, kidnapping Dawn. While he was kidnapping her, she was hit by the love potion. The first person she saw when she woke up was the Bog King and well you know what happens next. Marianne goes to save her sister and ends up falcon for the Bog King herself and him for her.
The story reminds me of the movie Beauty and the Beast. The message being “everyone deserves love” and “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Except at the end, the Bog King does not turn into a handsome prince. The movie is filled with popular songs from the past six decades to help tell the tale. The movie is a little fast paced, especially in the beginning. And if you don’t like musicals, it might not be for you because there is more song singing than story line. The movie is beautiful, colorful filled with a cast of goblins, elves, fairies, and imps, and sparked with a ton of magic and laughs. Parents might enjoy the movie more than the children because it’ll remind them of the childhood and will know A LOT of the songs.
Strange Magic, is out in theaters January 23rd.
