You know it’s a bad idea when French people make an English film about Hispanic pirates and Russian royalty, set in the American Wild West. It’s cinematic suicide when they decide to thrust this into the Cinderella story, and make all the characters dogs – except for the mother of Prince Vladimir who, inexplicably, is a bird and the pirates who are monkeys. Yes, so it’s like the Cowboys of Moo Mesa – only, with dogs, birds and monkeys.
The charm of Cinderella relies on the rescue fantasy – of an ill-treated woman finding the love of her life, courtesy the far-fetched assistance of a fairy godmother, pumpkin, rats and very impractical slippers. I’m not even sure how much can be said for a Prince with enough of a foot fetish to get obsessed with a glass slipper.
But, well, that story made sense to us when we were 5-year-olds. Now, if Cinderella had been a tomboy cowgirl, with a stepmother who brings Mammy from Gone with the Wind to mind, and stepsisters clumsy and pathetic enough to elicit our sympathy, the story would have no appeal. Not to mention that they are all dogs.
Playing the role of the fairy godmother here is an avuncular shaman, who tells us how the city has been taken over by a bulldog called Felicity, who has named it ‘Felicity City’. She quickly shows us she’s a tyrant by throwing away ancient Ming vases, brought to her as gifts by those who must seek an audience with her – this lot includes postmen bound by their duty.
Cinderella is an unappealing dog with a Christina Hendricks-like figure, cowboy clothes and ugly pigtails. She comes across as more of a bully than her rather tolerant stepmother, and only seems to remember her dead mother when the boys don’t find her sexy.
At those times, she obligingly weeps near a grave that seems to change its location frequently. In a nod to feminism, or shallowness, the Prince’s only duties are to play the violin, sound like Antonio Banderas, and not recognise Cinderella as the girl from the ball.
The writers of this bizarre – and extremely boring – take on the classic fairy tale have also seen fit to throw in a ship in a desert, which houses a ragtag group of pirates, led by a one-legged monkey. What the pirates do isn’t quite clear, since they can’t raid ships and don’t appear to make very good train robbers. As if this molestation of the story were not enough, the two mothers – Felicity’s and Vladimir’s – are addicted to gambling, and both cheat. When they run out of chips they place Vladimir on the table. The film, fortunately for us, stops short of a disrobing scene. However, it brings in an even more troubling obsession, with the glass slipper being replaced by a broken tooth.