Review of Another Cinderella Story (2008) by Brianna — 07 Jun 2010

So why did I watched this? It was the deadly combination of TV cable and the lack of things to do. Plus, I secretly like Selena Gomez.

Mary (Selena Gomez) was an orphan whose mom was a dancer. Joey Parker was a world famous singer/dancer who decided to take a break and spend the senior year at school. And then there's Natalia, a former dance partner of Joey's that attended the same school.

Not Cinderella enough? There's an evil stepmother Dominique--a somewhat aging celebrity who wanted to record a duet with Joey--plus her two evil daughters who couldn't really dance.

Actually, this was not a bad movie. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed watching it. The writing was believable. Relationship between Mary and Joey was effortless and not cheesy. The dance scenes were great, and you could tell that they can really dance.

The main downfall of this movie is in fact the creative decision to follow Cinderella concept. I really believe that without borrowing Cinderella's story, this movie had enough gimmick to attract teen viewers on its own: a story about superstar + dancing + Selena Gomez. Instead, we were given with these useless stepsisters who contributes nothing to the story, while we could focus much more on Natalia.

In the end, it is still a surprisingly fresh take on Cinderella and makes a wonderful guilty pleasure. I would have given it a much higher score if it dared to explore its own storyline instead of using Cinderella.