Good watch, could watch again, and can recommend.
I'm honestly concerned that this isn't a movie that anyone is going to watch again and again, but it's a solid watch, and a definite improvement over the 1950 animated classic, though I can't say this touches "Ever After" for me.
The original story was somewhat lacking, but had fantastic animation for the time, along with voice acting and writing parallel with the movies of its time. I'm somewhat sad to say that is a fair difference in quality compared to modern standards.
Disney very much kept this dumbed down for younger audiences, and I expect them to have more fun with scenes like "lizard footman eats a fly", but in the very least they steered away from realistic cg talking animals (a creepy factor in many of the live action remakes), though they do make a very specific nod to it at the beginning of the movie.
While I do think they managed to improve on almost ever facet of the original, it certainly isn't without flaws.
The casting is all over the place, which, I'm sure, affected the odd character development. Oddly, the less important characters, the men, in this case, are fine, I really have zero to say other than I rather like Nonso Anozie in anything he's in, and I did think the bit about "Kit" was a rather inspired thing.
I understand that Kate Winslet has had a villainous kick the past few years, and she plays "stuck up snoot" very well, but seeing Helena Bonham Carter come in to give us "the fairy godmother who ain't got time for dat" really makes me wonder if they just weren't paying her enough to care. It would have made more sense to let Winslet elevate the fairy godmother (one of the only things that really wasn't) and let Carter goes Bellatrix Lestrange as the Wicked Stepmother.
Sophie McShera did a marvelous job of making me hate her character, and Holliday Grainger kept making me see Katherine Heigl if we could keep her away from tanning beds, so they both did a marvelous job as wicked stepsisters (honestly, probably the best performances of the movie).
For some reason though, they made a very strange decision to make all the wicked women gingers, though not with a very convincing dye job. I don't know if it was supposed to be representative of their tacky fashion and the ability to dye hair at the time, or if Disney really thinks gingers don't have a soul, but it was a blaring message, if illegible.
What makes me think that they don't care at all is Lily James. She's lovely, she did a good job with the role as written, and I'm dying to see her in anything else to see if any of the oddities were her, or she's done just as good as Winslet with the roles they were given.
Cinderella is traditionally a "fairest in the land" look, given that it's the middle of Europe, I imagine northern was exotic once upon a time, or at least certain people thought so she is traditionally very blonde and very fair. Lily James is neither (in this, despite some of the posters), so I thought they were taking a more Germanic look with a more honey colored hair....but it is also very oddly colored, and perhaps we wouldn't have notice if it wasn't for her very prominent BLACK eyebrows (which I have nothing against, I actually think they're lovely) which would have been simple enough to die to match. Alternatively they could have abandoned blonde altogether (plenty of versions do). It is just very odd to spend millions of dollars to do something purposefully (and repetitively) to make it look like they don't care and objectively make their movie worse.
Overall, it's this sort of attitude that seeps into the movie at different points. It could have been a masterpiece, but instead, everyone knows it's a guaranteed paycheck on the title alone and made something that ends up being rather average despite itself.
