This musical is about Prince Dauntless and Princess Winnifred getting engaged. The queen, Dauntless’ mother, tries to thwart it from happening. She still treats her son like a child, after all, even though he looks middle aged.
There
are so many good, creative moments. Such as a dismembered hand holding the
keyring.
Princess Winnifred makes a massive
entrance in front of a large crowd about how shy she is. So unfortunate for her
but the irony (am I using that right?) of the situation is amusing.
There’s one shot where it looks like
they’re lying on grass but the shot pans out and the characters are actually
leaning against a hedge. I like that.
The queen says they need to test the
princess and the wizard suggest a sensitivity test. The queen replies, ‘No. I
know! Sensitivity. Sometimes my brilliance amazes even me.’ Firstly that last
line is pure perfection. Secondly, I love it when a character dismisses
another’s idea then repeats it, claiming it as their own. It happened on
‘Timone and Pumba’ a lot, and ‘Pinky and the Brain’ if I remember correctly.
When Winnifred sings about the voice
of the swamp, she keeps on repeating, ‘Luggo, luggo, luggo’ which had me
chuckling. Then Dauntless does this unexpected high note at the end. Was this
meant purely to amuse or did the producers/directors want to showcase the
actor’s range?
Winnifred
uses dust from a tapestry as chalk for lifting weights. That was rather
creative! But really, the queen needs to hire cleaners that do their jobs.
In
one song, it’s like the Twelve Days of Christmas: each time singing a new
verse, they’d repeat all the ones that came before.
Winnifred
sings about Rapunzel, wondering if she can escape with her hair. ‘No, it would
bloody hurt.’ Amazing!
There
were, of course, problems.
Larkin
is pregnant with Sir Harry’s baby. (He says she had a moment of
weakness. You what?) People can only marry once the prince is married so Sir
Harry goes out to find a princess for the prince. Clearly with Larkin pregnant
they’re in a rush yet they have the time to sing about it? You could at least
on your way rather than doing it statically.
Dauntless
calls his dad ‘Papa’. He pronounces it like ‘paapuh’ but the upper classes
pronounce it as ‘pupaa’.
The
queen rams her crown up Winnifred’s behind to get her up the ladder and into
bed. Then Winnifred wears her crown to sleep. After this, Winnifred counts
sheep but when she gets up in the morning, the amount of sheep she counted was
far too small for an entire night. What is going on?
The
song ‘Spanish Panic’ was a bit of a mess. It started with a Spanish intro but
then lost all Iberian music, being left only with the pose. Then the Spanish
element to the music returns, bringing with it a fan and a matador cape. This
absence did nothing positive to the song. Then the weirdest thing happens:
Winnifred jumps into a crouch then looks up, a rose appearing in her mouth out
of nowhere. This seems like a really funny detail but added to the bizarreness
of ‘Spanish Panic’.
This
film makes for an easy watch with easy giggles. The queen’s outfits are truly
spectacular yet the prince’s are bloody awful. It’s always interesting to see
what Americans think royalty do!
No comments:
Post a Comment