
Heh...was pretty good. Not that bad! They should've just called this Cinderella III: A Twist in Sequel Quality. Anyway...
The Good:
I'll start with this, cause I genuinely feel that this movie excels at more good than anything else, both in terms of quantity and importance of the film's design. For Return to Neverland, while I felt it had plenty of problems, the characters made up for it cause the main focus of the film was the characters. Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is kind of an inverse of this in concept. I'll explain...
Animation - The animation in this is freaking beautiful. While in Bambi II - which had great quality animation - Cinderella III: A Twist in Time stays in quality with the original Cinderella. Characters have facial expressions that are beautifully animated, and there's a real authenticity to all of it. It's really great stuff that I can't help to commend the efforts of DisneyToon Studios for. The characters have animations that feel almost rotoscoped at times, I feel - which is pretty fluid. My favorite scene is easily the climax of the film, when Cinderella's dress is all tore up and she's stuck in a magic-infused pumpkin carriage and basically fights her way out of it completely out of man-power. It's dark, intense, and genuine.
Story - Now while I don't think it's necessarily well-told, the story is pretty intense. While the Title is A Twist in Time, I think the twist for this movie is effectively turning Cinderella's story into an action movie in comparison to the romance plot of Cinderella. Ignoring the blight that is Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, the plot and style goes back to the original movie. The whole sequence of events in the film, really feel like it could've happened in Cinderella, outside of some uninspired blights (cake sequence, UGH). It's pretty consistent not only with the original, but with itself, so it gets a big thumbs up from me to the writers and director of the film.
The movie is action packed, but this aspect ties in both Animation and Story. Cinderella is a true badass in this, pushing her in places you would never thought she would be. Alternatively, putting her in places you would never thought she would be could make her more vulnerable too...
<center>

Cinderella's reaction to Cinderella II: Dreams Come True as it's looming shadow
attempts to destroy her hymen like it destroyed my faith in humanity.</center>
While this may sound kind of hammy, I think this actually brings more depth on the Cinderella character. In the original Cinderella - despite it ending in a very random and magical ending for Cinderella - had already a lot of depth about how Cinderella's character shaped up to be. Her story is tragic so the only emphasized sides you see of her are the two extremes: Joyous and depressed. She goes through specific character arcs tailored for the audience's emotional response, and it works well in the original. With Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, instead of rehashing those two elements all over again, we begin to see the more Grey side to Cinderella's Yin and Yang. The "Twist" isn't just about the fact that it takes place in an alternate universe situation, or the fact that the movie has an action movie take on Cinderella's classic story, but it's on Cinderella's character too. In my opinion, this is the highlight of the film and actually makes it worth watching. It expands on an already great character.
My only real beef with the story is that it is, ultimately, a pointless venture. Actually...maybe the intent was to erase Cinderella II: Dreams Come True from history? That could work!
Characters - With exception of the few, characters in this movie are great. Aside from Cinderella - which I've already explained in the above paragraphs - the side characters are also consistent to the original for the most part. There are exceptions, but characters like the king, Laddy Tremaine, the Duke, etc. are pretty much what I expect to see them do and how they act, so nothing really there is disappointing. There is one major change to the characters, however: Prince Charming. Prince Charming has been completely revamped from having no character, to having actual character and personality. He comes off as dumb sometimes, but he isn't bad and it is an improvement overall.
The Bad:
Oh boy...don't get me started on some of these aspects.
Anastasia - Mygod did she painfully take the place of Cinderella's Mary Sue from Cinderella II: Dreams Come True in this movie. Did the writers really think that fans would be convinced and sympathetic to a really dull, ugly, and unfunny comedic character such as Anastasia? Like in Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, she gets character focus...but even more-so. This time everything goes her way, and it doesn't really take her till the end till she realizes how horrible she's been. Then the movie has the gall to compare her to the queen like she is special or some shit. I'm sorry but her whole involvement with the movie's plot was cringeworthy, considering we got scenes like this:
<center>

How many people laughed at this scene? According to the United Nations: 0.</center>
The Humor in this movie in general is pretty lame, but this scene particularly strikes me as awful. Not only is it pointless to the actual character arcs at hand, but it's unrealistic to the characters of Anastasia and Drizella. When you watched Cinderella, did you ever imagine those two ruining something as big as the cake scene? They were ladies of class, even though clumsy with a high temper, they wouldn't do what occurred in the above scene. It's really an embarrassing scene that isn't funny either, and easily the worst scene in the film.
Now taking this in consideration, was it really appropriate to give Anastasia development in an already awful non-developed character role? It just seems out of place with what is established already in the movie, and ultimately hamfisting a need to please her niche fanbase. What's worse is that she's actually pretty much CO-STARRING THE ENTIRE FILM! It sucks, to be honest.
Humor - This movie, like it's predecessor, wasn't funny at all. There was some moments - like some lines of dialogue that you can tell the voice actors and writers were having fun with - but pretty much all the humor in this is lackluster and uninspired. The mice still aren't funny, but at least they move the plot forward this time (in the most unfunny way possible).
The Meh:
While I don't feel like going too deep into it, I think the Dialogue for the film wasn't really that good or bad.
There are also some really strange moments that feel kind of held back just to keep on with the plot, such as when Cinderella finally gets the wand for the first time it takes forever for her to actually start using it before she's captured. Then there's the fact that the prince jumped from the window in one scene as if he was going head-first into the ground, but it panned to another shot where he was climbing down some vines? There's some other scenes like this, but nothing in particularly jarring, but when I saw them I could only say to myself, "They really should've edited this better.
As I've said before, also, that the Story could've been done a lot better. Tremaine sure does restrict herself to using a wand that has god-like powers, which seems odd to me cause you'd think she would just create her own kingdom out of magic for her two daughters to have sex with any dreamy guys they want at any time.
Conclusion:
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is a good movie, sometimes even great, but really should've been polished more. It's biggest strength I feel is how it handles Cinderella's character, which is really exciting and fun to watch. Ultimately, even though I still have a long way to go, I have a feeling this movie is DisneyToon Studio's swan song in a lot of ways. If not for the quality of the movie's story itself, then for the quality of the animation and how it stays consistent to the original aesthetic.
6/10
Up next: The Hunchback of Notre Dame II