Ever After

Before watching this one the wife and I decide to purchase a fifth of Vodka. We are adults and we drink responsibly. She thought it would just be nice to have an adult drink for once, I thought it was required to get through Ever After.
Much like Dreamer, Ever After is essentially a harmless movie. It is the retelling of Cinderella with Drew Barrymore as "Cinder," Angelica Houston as the wicked step mom and two actresses I don't know by name as the wicked step sisters. In this version, an elderly woman has called the countries stories teller in to correct their version of Cinderella.
This retelling focuses on a young girl who loses her father shortly after he marries the baroness and returns with her two daughters. After his death, Danielle (Barrymore) is placed into a life of servitude for her step mother and her daughters.
When she is older Danielle has a chance meeting with the Prince which leads to another meeting between the two which creates a opportunity for the Prince to mistakenly believe that Danielle is above the servant class. The two find themselves crossing paths again and again as their relationship grows and regardless of the obstacles we all know this one is going to have a happy ending.
Barrymore plays Danielle as something of a modern woman. She reads despite her step mothers displeasure with it and she has no problem vocalizing her opinions in regards to errors in treatment of the servant class as well as other issues plaguing their society. Dougray Scott plays the Prince, he is witless and virtually superfluous to the story because the story is all about Danielle.
I remember when this film originally came out it was built up as a Cinderella story that had more of an adventure feel to it. I also remember thinking that if I talked to girls at that time I would have liked to have asked one out on a date to go see this film. I'm married now and before we sat down to watch this together my wife said this film is like the Princess Bride only better. I could not disagree more considering this film is not even remotely funny and the action/adventure sequences are weak by comparison. With all that being said I can see the appeal of watching this with my daughter when she is old enough. Outside of that though I can not imagine any amount of alcohol being enough to get me through watching this film again.