Netflix’s Steps: Cinderella’s Steps Get Own Film, Reviews Mixed
Netflix's animated musical Steps, which gives Cinderella's stepsisters their own story, has drawn lukewarm reviews. Critics cite a crowded script with five credited writers and a starry voice cast led by Amanda Seyfried, Ali Wong and Bette Midler, with Thanksgiving family viewing in mind.
Netflix's animated musical Steps, which gives Cinderella's stepsisters a story of their own, has opened to lukewarm reviews, with critics calling it busy, sluggish and overstuffed. It is pitched as holiday family viewing over Thanksgiving.
The Hollywood Reporter's reviewer wrote that there are "worse ways for families to kill a couple of hours together over Thanksgiving." The same review called the film a "charm-deficient Cinderella makeover" that wastes a starry voice cast.
Who is in the film
Amy Poehler produced Steps. Alyce Tzue and John Ripa co-directed. Tzue is a debut director, and Ripa's earlier credits include Raya and the Last Dragon.
Ali Wong voices Lilith, a punky teen who wants to correct what she calls the "character assassination" of the storybook tale. Stephanie Hsu voices her younger sister, Margot. Amanda Seyfried plays Cinderella.
Bette Midler is the Fairy Godmother, Nikki Glaser voices the mean girl Priscilla, and Peter Dinklage plays a sinister butler named Roderick. Daniel Radcliffe voices the Prince.
The story
The sisters move to the kingdom of Alouette after their dressmaker mother, Li Mei, falls in love with Edmund, Cinderella's father. Their cheongsams and black hair mark them as outsiders in a world styled on 18th century French rococo.
Priscilla locks the sisters in a gated storm drain, and Cinderella sides with the popular kids instead of her stepsisters. That betrayal drives Lilith toward a goth makeover.
She later steals the Fairy Godmother's wand and arrives at the Royal Ball in a skull-shaped black carriage. Margot spends most of the film turned into a frog after the Fairy Godmother loses her wand.
What critics say
Both reviews point to the script. Five writers are credited with the screenplay, and the story credit runs to six or seven names, starting with comedy duo Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, who perform as Garfunkel and Oates.
The Hollywood Reporter said the crowd of writers gives the film the feel of a project "patched together by committee." It called the plot "so convoluted that just following the plot becomes a chore."
Another review said the film was meant to be a Disney parody with songs by Garfunkel and Oates. It said the project lost its sharper personality at Netflix and landed somewhere between the snark of Shrek and the pop chaos of KPop Demon Hunters.
That review also faulted the film for raising the idea that the stepsisters are not evil but Asian, then barely engaging with it. It said any insight is muddled by the movie around it.
