User:Stephenfisher2001/sandbox/Save

The Magic Riddle is a 1991 Australian animated feature film directed and written by Yoram Gross. The film tells the story of Cindy, an orphan who lives as an indentured servant to her cruel stepmother, and features elements of famous fairy tales including Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, The Ugly Duckling, The Three Little Pigs and Pinocchio.

Plot
Cinderella and other fairy tales get jumbled together when a grandmother tells a story.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The animation is really ugly and hideous to look at.
 * 2) The pacing is very rushed, as it shows.
 * 3) The movie sometimes feels like it's ripping off Into the Woods.
 * 4) Most of the songs are either bland, forgettable, pure cringe or just no reason to be in the movie like the three little pigs song.
 * 5) The plot of the story is a mess and feels very over-stretched, complete with plot strands that either feel underdeveloped or pointless as it's derails itself pretty quickly.
 * 6) The widow's disguises are on the same poor qualities as of Team Rockets disguises from the Pokémon anime series:
 * 7) Just like to Walt Disney's The Three Little Pigs short, The salesman disguise look like a racist Jewish stereotype.
 * 8) The Big Bad Wolf disguise not only looks like an amateurs first fur suit, but it hardly look like a Wolf at all, as it looks more like your generic ran of the mill cartoon dog. Also how did Cindy not notice the Widow's hands and feet sticking out of the fur suit.
 * 9) The Pinocchio mother disguise makes no sense at all, like how did Pinocchio ever think that a random human woman who he never seen in his life gave birth to a puppet? Also, how did she think this was going to work anyway?
 * 10) Most of the characters range from to being annoying, useless or completely dumb:
 * 11) Cindy who is not only uncomfortably cute but is incredibly stupid throughout the entire movie, such as she said she doesn't know what snakes are or getting fooled by the Widow's "disguises." It's also been revealed that Cindy might actually secretly be a gold digger because the will also stipulates that Cindy will only get everything if she gets married, and this is what makes her agree to marry Phillip. That's right, she only marries him if it means that she can get a bunch of stuff that she didn't even want. What an inspiring message for young girls everywhere.
 * 12) To get the elephant out the room first, Phillip is heavily a ripoff of Prince Eric from Disney's The Little Mermaid, and not only he is just as a bland love interest as Flash Century from My Little Pony: Equestrian Girls but is also a stalker. Whenever he is on screen he seems to talk about nothing else except for Cindy, and there's this one scene where he even watches Cindy from behind the bushes and trees. He also doesn't seem to have good observation as he's been to the old widow's house multiple times already, but he's never met Cindy, who lives with her? In one scene, he also doesn't stand up to the Widow for yelling at Cindy making him a bit of a coward.
 * 13) The Widow might actually be the ugliest, loudest and over-the-top villain in cartoon history. Speaking of which, whenever she's on screen she flashes her knickers on screen as well her breasts fly around making the viewers feel awkward and disgust, this is especially inappropriate for it's target demographic which is children.
 * 14) The ugly duckling and the three little pigs serve no purpose to the film whatsoever, as their just there to either be a reference to the classic fairy tales or Cindy making an excuse just to sing about something.
 * 15) Hansel and Gretel (the Willow's henchmen dogs) also serve no purpose to the film as well, as their just there to try to get a cheap laugh for the sake of comedy.
 * 16) The widow's daughters Bertha and Ertha, are also unlikable. Bertha is just a big fat meanie to Cindy and a huge pervert to Phillip and Ertha, while likable at first does have her downsides at times. Sometimes she helps her sister, Bertha, get Cindy into trouble, making it hard for the viewer's to question her loyalty and friendship with Cindy. Also, she might be a pedophile due to whenever she and Pinocchio are on screen together and having feelings for him.
 * 17) Speaking of Pinocchio, he has probably by far the worst and strangest design out of all the other Pinocchio's in other fairy tale films, as he looks more like Matthew Santoro with a huge honker. Not only he can get annoying at times, but for some strange reason, his voice sounds like Daffy Duck rather than the voice of a young boy. And again as mentioned earlier, He also gets tricked by the Widow, who is pretending to be his mother.
 * 18) The seven dwarfs hardly do anything in the entire movie, as all they did was make Cindy a dress and her carriage out of ice and snow and that's it. Another thing to point out is that by the time they introduce themselves in the musical form you can't remember any of their names because of how boring and forgettable their song was.
 * 19) The widow (in her Pinocchio mother disguise) for some strange reason hypnotized Cindy with an apple rather than letting her eat it like in the Snow White story.
 * 20) Cindy brings Pinocchio and the seven dwarfs to life just by kissing them, it's neither explain how she actually did this.
 * 21) The Movie never explains what happens to Cindy's parents. It also never explains why Cindy's dad married the widow in the first place as she's loud, nasty and incredibly ugly.
 * 22) It makes no sense as to why didn't the dwarfs or Phillip get the police to help Grandma out of The Castle of the Hundred Doors?
 * 23) Pinocchio becomes a real boy as soon he becomes wood again and getting kissed by Ertha, which does not happen in the original Pinocchio story.
 * 24) Throughout most of the movie Cindy is almost never seen wearing shoes.
 * 25) Misleading title: the riddle itself isn't magical whatsoever.
 * 26) Cindy's song about being an "ugly duckling" and wondering when she'll turn into a swan. All while having a thin curvy body, animesque eyes, long flowing hair in contrast to her old wrinkly oppressor. Not to introduce the opinions of Mr. Anonymous Editor, but some may see this song as really stupid in its context, also as soon the ugly ducking gets adopted by his new duck family, we see him and his family flies into the sky never to be seen or heard ever again.
 * 27) So the whole point of the magic riddle was that Pinocchio knows where the will is... except that he DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE WILL IS?! Oh, but it's OK because the magic riddle is actually a play on words. See, Pinocchio doesn't know where the will is, the will is actually hidden in his nose (facepalm).
 * 28) How does the inheritance go to Cindy if Grandma was married to Cindy's Grandfather in the first place? Shouldn't she be the one to get Grandfather's inheritance, not Cindy?
 * 29) Similar to Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, if the grandma is supposed to be old, then why doe's she look so young?
 * 30) Even though that Cindy and Phillip lived happily ever after and the Widow getting punished, the dwarfs get to turn back and stay as wood (except for Pinocchio who got off scot-free because Ertha kissed him in his wooden state). It also never questions why neither Cindy didn't bring back the dwarfs or how Ertha brought back Pinocchio.
 * 31) The Widow's name is never revealed.
 * 32) The comedy isn't really that funny.
 * 33) The fairy tales references, while sometimes if not mostly feel underused at times.
 * 34) Cindy and Phillip's relationship doesn't seem very genuine as it feels very forced.
 * 35) Even though the Widow gets punished for all the bad things at the end, she should be sent straight to Jail for all the horrible things she did to everyone (abusing the elderly, animal abuse, slavey, trespassing, disturbing the peace, etc.)
 * 36) While it makes a lot of sense that Cindy's Grandfather to carve Pinocchio because just like Geppetto from the original Pinocchio, he too probably wanted a child. But why did he decided to carve the seven dwarfs?

Good Qualities

 * 1) Grandma might be the only character in the entire film to be close enough to be likable.
 * 2) Making one of the evil stepsisters (Ertha) not only kinder and friendly to Cindy, but also a nice little twist on the Cinderella story as a whole.
 * 3) Just like Shrek and Roald Dahl revolting rhymes animated movie, the idea about mixing up fairy tales (both it's Characters and elements) is an awesome idea for a fairy tale movie.
 * 4) Out of all the songs in this movie, "Ordinary Miracles" is the only decent song to listen to. To bad is only at the end of the credits.
 * 5) Some kids and non-Disney fans might like this movie.
 * 6) The ugly duckling and the three little pigs are arguably cute characters.
 * 7) Seeing the Widow by getting punished for her misdeeds by becoming Cindy's maid (along with Bertha) is satisfying.
 * 8) At least it's not a bad fairy tale movie compared to Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil, Shrek the Third and Alibaba and the Gold Raiders.
 * 9) The Castle of a Hundred Doors has the best scenes in the movie as it looks cool and spooky.

Average films]] 1990s Films]] Animation Films]] Family films]] Adventure films]]