Penelope (2006)

New-age fairy-tale

This is a very good flick, I recommend any and everyone to see it. Christina Ricci is spectacular and James McAvoy is...well, James McAvoy hasn't starred in a single movie I haven't liked. Even Reese Witherspoon's short little stint is delightful! November 12, 2008

GREAT FILM, BUT LACKLUSTER DVD TAKES IT DOWN A NOTCH!

I'm a sucker for a good fairy tale and 'Penelope' is one of the best I've seen in years. Ricci is perfect in the title role and although she has a pig's nose, strangely she remains attractive in this quirky love story! What I loved about this film was the more you get to know her character, the more her bizarre disfigurement just didn't matter. There's a great message here about acceptance and how self esteem can alter the way people perceive you, but unfortunately the DVD is a bit of a bummer. There aren't many extras and there are scenes cut and shortened from the film at least how it was viewed over seas. I didn't see this film in theaters, so I'm not quite sure what exactly has been changes. It would have been nice to offer a 2 disc edition with both versions of the film and more extra material. November 9, 2008

Christina Ricci Is hot.

Simple fact Even with the pig nose I still thought she was hott. She could have a curly tail and shed still be hot. I hope she reads this and laughs so hard she oinks.... I mean snorts ohh and the movie was pretty funny too November 7, 2008

Impossible to 'uglify' Christina

Penelope definitely seemed like my kind of movie. It has Christina Ricci in it, and it's going along the lines of an ugly-duckling-turning-into-a-swan story, which yes, has been done a million times.

It's probably my latter comment which should have made me stay away from it. (Also the fact it has James McAvoy in it - what is the appeal about him? I don't get it.) There's just something magical missing from Penelope, which should have made it stand out from all the other movies out there. For starters, it's impossible to uglify Christina, just by putting a false nose on her. It just didn't work. She still looked as gorgeous as ever.

The plot was pretty simplistic, so simplistic that even I found nothing I didn't understand about it. There's a lot of familiar British faces in it, so look out for them. Burn Gorman was my main one - for Torchwood fans - but there's a few other familiar faces there.

There's not much else to say about Penelope. It just didn't work for me and was very disappointing. October 19, 2008

Perfect Penelope

Normally, when a movie is touted as being "family-friendly" it's a codeword for "incredibly boring." Penelope, conversely, is both family-friendly and entertaining. It's even extremely charming to boot. Normally, a movie feels strained or too simple when it strives to be viewable by everyone -- trying to please too many people results in pleasing no one -- but this story is complete and perfect. October 15, 2008

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