ANI-MOVIES, *Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs

While we've seen dozens of retakes of various fairy tales mashed together from properties like Hoodwinked, Once Upon A Time, and Kingdom Hearts, but this mixed drink of kiddy stories is much better than the last few Shrek sequels. It's an American production fully animated by South Korean studio Locus Corporation titled Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs which is a crossover of storybook fantasy and pop culture. It was distributed by Next World Entertainment which mainly dealt in releasing movies directly from Korea, so when it came to having it come out in America there was no theatrical release and a limited DVD/Blu-Ray campaign. Even though the majority of the movie was done by Locus, there are some former Disney workers behind its production. The film came out in 2019, but didn't see an American release until sometime later even though it was initially made for an English-language audience. This isn't a release like A Wizard's Tale that got a totally different script for the English version since this film was produced specifically for American viewers. Red Shoes features an all-star cast like Chloe Grace Moretz, Patrick Warburton, and Gina Gershon, but what kept it from getting a wider release was the mistake of the original marketing suffering major backlash that made it appear as if the movie was fat shaming. This set back production about an extra year or so to clean up the movie's reputation. It is now available on several streaming services, some of which are free so you can make your mind up.

The movie takes place in a land which is a patchwork world of different story characters living in several different kingdoms. There was a group of heroes called the Fearless Seven who were the Justice League of this world made up of young versions of King Arthur, Merlin, Hans(Gretel's brother), Jack(don't know which "Jack"), plus a set of triplets named Pino, Noki and Kio who are specialists at making steampunk tech usually comprised of trees. After rescuing a fairy princess from a dragon, they reject her because of her green skin mistaking her for a witch, so the princess curses them by turning them all into small green dwarfs which can only be lifted if they get kissed by the most beautiful woman in the world. Sometime later, Snow White is a strong but chunky princess whose father got remarried to a woman named Regina who in reality is a witch who turns people into wooden creatures and gets help from her living magic mirror. After the king goes missing, Snow investigates her stepmother's chamber where she keeps a magic tree that sprouts red shoes that makes the wearer appear beautiful. Snow takes the shoes and now looks much thinner but weaker. She comes across the dwarfs and they plan to defend her in the hopes she'll kiss them all and break their curse. Regina cons the unpopular Prince Average to using his goons to fetch Snow White now going by the name of Red Shoes. The dwarfs appear to everyone else as short green men, but if there's no one else around they shift back to their human form, and Merlin is the most voracious to get his old body back because his magic is more potent when he's not a dwarf. After sweeping Average and his men under the rug thanks to the triplet's construction of a giant wooden robot, the dwarfs concentrate their efforts on getting Miss Red Shoes to kissing them. Snow White is haunted with keeping up the appearance of her new slimmer body as Red Shoes which she believes is the only reason she believes the dwarfs are helping her as she tries to find her missing father. Merlin has his own paradox of trying to return to his handsome self again while trying to woo Red Shoes into kissing him, but totally missing the fact that Snow genuinely loves him as a dwarf. This all culminates in Disney-esque ending somewhat mocking Beauty And The Beast, even though they end up the going over the fates of the remaining dwarfs in a quick montage during the closing credits.

Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs(and they do make a point about whether the term is "dwarves")does maintain some dazzling animation and great voice acting. Some of the pop songs that were incorporated into the soundtrack don't fit well in certain scenes. The film has engaging CGI making the characters more lifelike while keeping their cartoonish designs. As far as the past fat shaming controversy, you'll discover upon watching this that it was just bad advertisement as the film handles body positivity with considerable care. It's a fine feature for the whole family despite the fact that it goes over some overly familiar source material.