YMMV / Enchanted

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Taken the wrong way, the film can come off as implying that it's perfectly fine to break off a four year committed relationship for the sake of a girl you've only known for a week.
  • If a woman loves a man, she should leave her whole life behind and go live with him in a strange new place. The fact that Nancy throws away her cell phone in Andalasia just further symbolizes how she casts away her whole identity for Edward's sake.
    • Softened, in the sense that Nancy finds love, and happily becomes a princess. Plus, it's safe to assume that she and Edward can easily return to New York through the portal (just as he was able to in the first place).
    • In addition, it's implied Nancy wants a fairy tale romance that's uncomplicated.
  • Courtesy of "That's How You Know", you shouldn't stop doing romantic things for your significant other once you're official.
• Adorkable:
  • Despite being a Warrior Prince and a true Determinator, Edward is very overly-enthusiastic about his role as a prince and some of his reactions are rather cute.
  • Giselle too can be actually quite dorky while trying to come across as a sugary sweet Disney Princess in New York - and especially a scene where she feels anger for the first time, and bounces back and forth between that and Squeeing at the sensation.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The Nostalgia Chick suggested that the film's real Aesop is about getting the balance between dreams and reality. As noted under Fridge Brilliance, this is arguably the true Aesop of "That's How You Know".
• Award Snub:
  • Three songs earned nominations for the Best Song Oscar. Hence, the vote got split, and "Falling Slowly" from Once won the statuette. Of those three songs, Carrie Underwood's "Ever Ever After" wasn't one of them.
  • Several reviewers brought up Amy Adams as a possible Best Actress Oscar nominee, but she was shut out as well.
• Base-Breaking Character: Queen Narissa. Some people find her a dull, unmemorable villain with generic motives. Others find her a fabulous villain, who gets some hilarious lines. Others still find her a hilarious parody of a dull, unmemorable villain with generic motives.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: A random New Yorker is sometimes misheard as having said, "Get the fuck outta here!". He actually said, "Get that bus outta here!".
• Comedy Ghetto: Amy Adams didn't get an Oscar nomination (see above), though she did get a Golden Globe nomination - for Best Actress, Musical or Comedy.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour:
  • One scene involves Giselle falling onto Robert, after taking a shower no less, causing Robert's girlfriend Nancy to think he was cheating on her, with the misunderstanding only increasing when Robert says that Giselle isn't married yet and mentions "grown-up girl bonding time" which actually refers to Nancy (a grown-up) bonding with his little daughter Morgan (a girl), but she took it for a euphemism for sex.
  • During the shopping scene, Morgan says that if Giselle wears too much makeup, "the boys" will get the wrong idea, because they're "only after one thing", but no one will tell her what the "one thing" (that's implied to be sex) is.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Jodi Benson as Sam, the secretary who gets some deadpan remarks about Giselle's claims.
  • Nancy (especially since her actress became a Disney Princess in Frozen (2013)), for her Closet Geek role and averting most of the common negative stereotypes of the Disposable Fiancée.
  • Nathaniel, for his Character Development and providing some good comic relief.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Many fans believe the deleted scenes could have added more depth and emphasis to both Nathaniel's last minute redemption, as well as Edward and Nancy's Last-Minute Hookup.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • There is a poster for Superman Returns in Times Square when Edward first arrives. Although an unintentional reference (filming for Enchanted just happened to take place while Returns was in theaters), it still served as a fun little nod to James Marsden's role in that film, and only got funnier once Amy Adams went on to play Lois Lane in Man of Steel.
  • And Nancy marrying Edward and becoming an animated princess becomes this as of 2013 - her actress, Idina Menzel, voices Elsa. Additionally, the Enchanted novelization reveals that Nancy eventually became Queen of Andalasia, while Elsa becomes Queen of Arendelle. And whereas Nancy married a prince she only knew for one day, Elsa objects to her younger sister doing the same with Hans.
  • When Nancy accuses Robert of cheating on her with Giselle, Giselle seems too naive to think that such activity involves anything more serious than kissing someone other than the one you love. Comparing Disney's Into the Woods to the play that inspired it, a scene of Cinderella's Prince cheating on Cinderella became toned down from him seducing the Baker's Wife, to simply him kissing her.
  • Queen Narissa herself becomes this after you watch Once Upon a Time and see how close Regina's Evil Queen Self looks like her. Not to mention that Narissa's plans for Giselle at first are very similar to Regina's plan with the dark curse.
  • Still on Nancy topic, Morgan is initially afraid to have a stepmother as her knowledge of them is from fairy tales. Her fears seems justified as Nancy surname is Tremaine, making her an homonym of Lady Tremaine, the stepmother in the Disney version of Cinderella. But it ends up subverted as Nancy is a Nice Girl. Yet, in 2021, Idina Menzel finally played the part of the (straight) Wicked Stepmother in the Prime video version of Cinderella (2021).
  • Also on the subject of stepmothers, part of the film's subversion is that Giselle becomes a stepmother without becoming wicked. Come Disenchanted (2022), and Giselle's wish to turn her life into more of a fairytale means she is forced to play the trope straight.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Pip being thrown in the fire. And Giselle thinking for any real length of time that he's dead.
• Narm: The sheer amount of Lampshade Hanging from Narissa on all the tropes being subverted in the climax. It's like the crew had no faith at all in the audience getting what they were doing. Additionally, she does so while turned into a monstrous dragon, but with pretty much the same voice she had as a human.
• Nausea Fuel: The "Happy Working Song", especially when the rats are cleaning the toilet with toothbrushes.
• Older Than They Think: The idea of fairytale characters encountering New York City via magic portal had actually been used years prior in the 2000 NBC miniseries The 10th Kingdom. However, the miniseries veered closer to the Brothers Grimm type of fairytales than the Disney type used in Enchanted.
• Shallow Parody: More critical reviews of the movie tend to point out that the Disney movie tropes it satirizes were, for the most part, already on their way out by the time it was released, or never existed to begin with.
• Squick: Exactly where the rats and flies come from for "Happy Working Song". The former were munching on giant piles of garbage...and the latter were buzzing around a barbecue where someone was cooking hot dogs and burgers.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • The Official Couple is seen as awkward by some given both of them have previous relationships.
  • If you don't watch a deleted scene on the DVD, then the Pair the Spares in the end has no set up but a single line where Nancy strongly admires how "romantic" Edward is.
    • Like many things in the movie, this trope is Lampshaded and made fun of in the beginning.
    Giselle: Oh, it's you.
    Prince Edward: Yes, it's me. And you are?
    Giselle: Giselle.
    Prince Edward: Oh, Giselle! We shall be married in the morning!
• Testosterone Brigade: Disney Princess film, filled with cuteness and romance and a Girly Girl doing Girly Girl things? Sure...but Robert is easily an Audience Surrogate for the boys and men in the audience, as he gets just as irritated and weirded out by her "sappy" attitude as said guys might've been without his presence. And let's be honest—Giselle is quite a looker; if she hasn't won the boys over by her sleeping on Robert's couch...she will in the shower scene.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: According to Globe and Mail they obviously hoped to provide girls in the audience a surrogate in Morgan. Except the film didn't give her anything to do other than beam happily whenever Giselle enters the room.
• Trailer Joke Decay: The scene where Edward is run over by bicyclists mid-song is played in a large portion of the promotional media, to the point where the joke had less of a punch when the movie was released in theaters.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Several key scenes take place in Times Square and the billboards in view date the movie to the late 00s.
  • Giselle’s makeover for the ball is very 2008, with clear lip gloss, straight hair, and a dress that wouldn’t look out-of-place at a late 00s prom. While not ugly by any means, it looks pretty underwhelming today.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Giselle gets one before going to The Ball, giving her a more "realistic" appearance to contrast with the "fairy-tale princess" look she originally had. Unfortunately, the filmmakers put the actress in an unflattering dress and gave her an unimpressive hairstyle, completely ruining the intended effect; she was much prettier as a "fantasy princess" than as a "real woman." And there was the fact that the ball specifically had a fantasy theme.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The CGI animals (pigeons, rats, cockroaches) are extremely realistic and don't stand out. The dragon in the climax isn't that bad either.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: See Unnecessary Makeover above. Giselle's dress for the final ball is some kind of purple stretch knit with an odd drape◊ that neither flatters the actress nor looks appropriate to the occasion. This is especially weird considering how nice all the other dresses in the movie are. Contrast Nancy and Robert's◊ outfits at this very same event.
• Win Back the Crowd: Through total happenstance this movie managed to pull this off for Disney as a whole. While Enchanted was to a certain extent a remnant of the Eisner era, its critical and financial success at the time, when at movie theaters Disney was for the most part having to thrive on Pixar and Pirates of the Caribbean for any success at the box office, did a lot of favors for the Disney brand as a whole. Even though the film wasn't a Walt Disney Animation Studios production, the fact that it was an Affectionate Parody of the tropes of the canon put a spotlight on the studio again that certainly did favors for the films that came out in the same time frame as this movie. Who knows if Frozen (2013) would have been as big as it was without Enchanted years prior? In an interesting case of combined coincidence and History Repeats, this wasn't even the first time a Disney-produced film that combined live-action with traditional animation played a key role in renewing public interest in Disney animation.
• The Woobie: It's hard not to want to give poor Giselle a hug whenever she's crying or fighting tears—like when the bum steals her tiara, or when she learns what divorce is, or as she watches Robert and Nancy dance and subsequently gives in to Narissa's taunts. Testament to Amy Adams's immense talent, in making sure Giselle would be a fully believable and lovable character instead of a mere parody to laugh at and dismiss.

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