SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

A Disappointing Continuation

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Because of the circumstances surrounding its release, "Happily Ever After" has a reputation as a cheap knockoff of the Walt Disney feature film, a lazy cashgrab relying on the original's good name. And while I won't argue that this sort of thing wasn't the executives' reasoning... watching "Happily Ever After" is a far more pleasant experience than you'd think.Of course, the animation can't hope to match the theatrical wonder of the 1937 classic, but it's actually pretty solid. There's never an off-model frame and the characters are rarely static; some of the character animation is also lively and, if not exactly Disney-quality, at least the sort of thing you'd see in a Don Bluth film. I'm thinking especially of Lord Maliss, Mother Nature and Snow White. There are also some nice effects, such as lightning, sprinkled through the feature. It's direct-to-video, but it's *good* direct-to-video; I daresay it's better than *some* of what Disney themselves have put out over the years.Naturally, Filmation could only skirt towards Disney's iconic designs, and perhaps the different appearance of Snow White and co. may be off-putting to some, but in truth, those designs *work*. Sure, Prince Florian is now a red-head, but... who cares, really? The design for Snow White in particular manages to be both pretty and original without straying *too* jarringly from the classic look. The only real downside here might be the Magic Mirror (inexplicably voiced by Dom DeLouise of all people), who feels like a badly-done parody of the original. The new characters aren't too bad either. Lord Maliss isn't exactly a complex villain, nor does he have the most original design in the book, but Malcom McDowell's acting is delightful in an over-the-top, Corey-Burton-as-Captain-Hook sort of way, and there's no denying his evil powers are, to put it simply, "way cool". The Dwarfelles may have the tackiest name in the history of animation, but they are actually engaging in their own way, and far from being just genderbent versions of the original Dwarfs; tying them to different elements and making them the apprentices of a personified Mother Nature is an... off-the-wall idea, to be sure, but not actually a bad one. It's entertaining. Scowl the Owl and Batso are decent comic relief on the villains' side, though they feel more like Iago than like Queen Grimhilde's Norman the Raven in the original.That's really the best thing to say about "Happily Ever After": for all that it curries favor based on the original's fanbase, it's not a lazy retread of the original. The plot and scenes (despite one or two echo, like Snow's run through the Black Forest) are quite original, not a thinly disguised remake. That's not to say it's the best plot ever, but it's engaging and will definitely keep kids watching, though aspects of it are predictable for adults. The big flaw of "Happily Ever After" is neither in its visual nor plot, but in the soundtrack. Some of the acting is fine or even great (Irene Cara is a surprisingly great Snow White, and I've already mentioned McDowdell as Lord Maliss), but some of it on incidental characters is weaker; and most glaringly... god, the *music*. I didn't come in expecting another "Someday, My Prince Will Come", of course; but it is just about the blandest, most 90's-esque *mess* imaginable. Consider that Scowl the Owl has a rap number of a villain song. Yes. A RAP NUMBER. I kid thee not. To make matters worse, these songs are poorly segued into the story, with characters talking one moment and then suddenly, abruptly breaking into (terrible) singing. Did I mention the singing was terrible? Because yup, it is.Tracey Ullman's Thunderella sounds cute and nice when talking, but her lack of singing skill turns what might simply have been a *mediocre* song into an awful experience to sit through. As for the instrumental music playing behind non-singing scenes, it's similarly bland and uninspired, though rarely distracting.Still, a poor soundtrack is not enough to make a movie bad. It's no Disney Classic, but I'd definitely take "Happily Ever After" over a lot of Disney's own direct-to-DVD sequels (such as "Belle's Magical World" and "The Fox and the Hound II"). If you like the original "Snow White", or fairy-tale-type animation in general, I'd recommend you give it a watch... though you shouldn't come in with too high expectations.

If you know about the company Filmation, they did make some iconic television cartoons like Fat Albert and He Man, but a majority of their content was generic Saturday morning trite that gave animation a bad name in the 1970s due to their cheap animation and lackluster stories that only kids would find amusing. Then when they were in need to save themselves in the 1980s, they made an unofficial sequel to Disney's Pinocchio, Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. However, Disney found out about this and sued the studio, but because they had started production on an unofficial sequel to Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, they reworked and redesigned that movie to be nothing like the Disney film. Upon it's release in 1993, three years after a brief release in France 1990, it was a commercial flop that caused the company to close its doors. After watching the movie itself, while I don't despise it, it definitely left much to be desired.The biggest problem with Happily Ever After is how dull and underdeveloped it is. The general story line is that Snow White must save the prince who was kidnapped by the wicked queen's brother Lord Maliss (don't ask), and along with the Seven Dwarfs' cousins the Dwarfelles (I think you can guess why there are no dwarfs), she sets off on a quest to save him from certain doom. Sounds exciting enough, yet the movie fails to give a reason as to why the audience should even care about these characters, let alone Snow White, leaving the story bland and straight forward. The characters themselves are not much better. Snow White is even blander than she was in the original Disney film, the only noteworthy thing about the prince is that he looks like a copy of He Man, and the Dwarfelles....well thanks to Mother Nature, they do possess magical powers such as control of the weather, control of the earth, control of fire, etc, but they have no personality outside of their powers and they contribute nothing to the plot aside from Sunburst and the whiny Thunderella. Also, there's a mysterious hooded character that follows Snow White around. Without giving much away, he ends up turning into someone significant in the end that makes the viewer wonder why he was changed in the first place.Another issue with this movie is that there is so much filler, mostly with the comic reliefs Scowl and Batso who offer nothing to the plot alongside being unfunny. This makes the movie feel significantly longer than it should, and it also takes away what could have been time to actually explore the characters and the world of the movie, which leads into another problem with the movie, the confusing fantasy elements. I wouldn't mind these elements if this movie was it's own interpretation of the original Snow White fairy tale, but since it's clearly meant to cash in on Disney's Snow White, it leaves these elements feeling out of place, as well as unexplained. Why is the villain a shape shifting dragon? What is the mythos behind the Dwarfelles magical elements? Why are there wolves, Mother Nature and other mystic creatures? I don't know, and the movie sure doesn't bother to ask. It just tosses whatever at the wall to see if it sticks, and unsurprisingly, none of it does because it doesn't fit within this film.Oh, and there are a few songs in this movie.....that's all I'm gonna say about them because I don't even remember most of them they flew by that fast. All I'm gonna say is that they only appear in the first half and that's it, so I don't know why they even bothered putting songs in the film to begin with.Now you're probably wondering, is there anything I like about this movie? Well the animation is decent enough, and while not solid enough for theatrical consumption due to inconsistent character animation, the character designs do look charming and colorful enough, and even a lot of the effects look visually impressive. Also, some of the world building does look kind of cool and grim when it wants to be as some of the places Snow White and the Dwarfelles enter have potential to be their own fun places to explore. Also, Malcolm McDowell is simply delightful as Maliss as he hams up the performance making him more entertaining than he had any right to be. Also, as forgettable as the songs in this movie are, the end credits song Love is the Reason is an entertaining albeit dated pop song sung flawlessly well by Irene Cara. That, and the general voice acting is decent enough, as the voice actors do well enough jobs by giving their characters distinct voices.Otherwise, despite some decent animated tricks and a fun villain, I was rather unimpressed with Happily Ever After due to its boring story, bland characters, plot holes, unresolved and furthermore unnecessary fantasy elements and soulless feel. And that's the worst thing that can be said about this film, it's soulless. Even though Disney's Snow White ain't perfect, it certainly had a lot of heart put into it, thus elevating its upbeat characters and emotional appeal that made it timeless. Happily Ever After has nothing to stand on its own, and even with the fantasy elements and Malcolm McDowell, this was just a waste of time that's better off dead like the wicked queen.

When I first saw this film, I thought it was okay. After a couple of of more watches, my mind is still the same. Could it be better? Yes. Is it that bad as most say? No, I don't think so. In fact, half of me felt attach to this film more than Disney. Yeah, some of the animation is cheesy, only 2 out of the 4 songs on here are memorable, but it is good. I like the somewhat "dark" atmosphere that was put up near the end, brings such suspense. I also did like how this Snow White, in terms of appearance and character. She is both an action girl while having a soft quality to her still. At most, this is a film that is a family movie, not meant to be taken too seriously, but very enjoyable for kids and adults. Give it a try.

I remember watching this movie back when it first came out when i was a little kid (7ish) and i found it to be a pretty good movie. Now, around 13 years later, i decided to buy a copy. and looking back on it, i STILL like this movie. The characters are neat, the plot is SO much better than the Disney version, and the songs are memorable. To begin with. i'll say it right now. i didn't like the Disney movie. tried to like it, but it made me go "neh, so what?" kinda like Pinocchio, but i'll save that for the OTHER sequel review. XD. anyway, Songs like, "Mother Nature" "He's Bad" and "I can get it right" are very cute and make you hum them while you're at work. The character VA's are actually quite good. the dwarfelles each have their own unique personality, the owl and the bat are nice comic relief, and OK, i'm going to say it. McDowell makes one of the BEST VILLAINS EVER. This guy has one of the most evil and maniacal voices i've ever heard. It's one of those voices that you'd never want a guy in a dark alley to have that you're walking down. XD. The only VA i DIDN'T like was Snow White's. I mean, the scene when she was crying, it sounded like she was eating grapes. her VA'ing did NOT impress me. i pretty much watch the movie DESPITE snow white. not because of her. O_O The BIGGEST problem i had with this movie are two-fold. 1. The animation for Snow white. Sometimes, when she reacted, she got ugly. FAST. I was like "BWAH! animators! what happened?!? O_O" as well as one that was more funny than anything, when they kept reusing her running animation over and over. that made me laugh. XD 2. The plot shortness. it seemed to me like they rushed the second half of the movie. i wanted to see more of the powers used. i mean, besides Thunderella, Sunburn, and Muddy, nobody even really DID anything on the trip. Blossom, the animal chick, the water woman, and Moonbeam were all COMPLETELY useless. it seemed for such a long journey they got there RIDICULOUSLY fast. They should have slowed it down a bit more, and let them USE their powers so it actually made sense when mother nature says "you proved yourselves" I expected when it got dark and the wolves came around for Moonbeam to pull out the Neo and start whoopin some wolves or something, but no, she's as useless at night, as she is during the day. But complaints aside, this is a very good movie whether you're a kid or an adult. i've always been a fan of independent Animation companies and their movies and this is no exception. This movie is worth it JUST for McDowell's Voice Acting. So yeah. i give it a 7/10. so go watch it. it's a very fun movie, with some problems, but almost every movie has those anyway. XD