Although the days of believing in fairy tales might be over for some, the magical remake of the movie Cinderella by Disney director Kenneth Branagh is now the number one movie in the world, bringing magic and happy-endings to movie theaters once again.

This version of Cinderella was based on the original 1950 animated version, written and produced by Walt Disney himself. The new version consists of Lily James playing Cinderella, Richard Madden as Prince Charming, Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother and Helena Carter as Cinderella’s fairy Godmother. The new version is almost identical to the animated version with just a few extra details to make the storyline more complex like introducing her parents in greater depth. Following the original storyline, Cinderella is a young girl whose mother dies at a young age. Her father then remarries to a wicked women who mistreats Cinderella. Cinderella’s father dies while on a business journey, and Cinderella is left to live with her stepmother and her two step sisters. Even with no family left and treated like a servant, Cinderella strives to live up to her mothers standards and to “have courage and be kind”. Cinderella eventually meets her fairy Godmother, attends the ball and gets her happy ending with Prince Charming.

Not only was the storyline spectacular, but the visual effects and costumes were even more so. The animation of the carriage, mice, palace and everything else was amazing. The costumes were also well designed, especially Cinderella’s fairytale dress. Actress Lily James wore the spectacular dress that Cinderella’s fairy Godmother made for her for the ball. The dress took 270 yards of fabric, more than 10,000 Swarovski crystals, 4 miles of thread and 3 miles of hems.

This version of Cinderella really struck on the points of “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Unlike the original story, Prince Charming is more in love with who Cinderella is on the inside rather than her beauty on the outside. Prince Charming meets Cinderella before the ball when he was out riding one day. Even dressed as a servant, Prince Charming is intrigued by what she says and how she acts. Also, when searching for Cinderella throughout the kingdom after the ball, he recognizes her in her servant clothes even before she tries on the glass slipper. Cinderella also touches on the points of forgiveness. Even with her stepmother treating her poorly, at the end of the film when Cinderella is leaving with Prince Charming, Cinderella states that she forgives her stepmother for all that she’s done to Cinderella, which spoke volumes to me.

I very much enjoyed and loved every aspect of the film. The movie Cinderella is an all time Disney classic and before watching the movie I was afraid that they would ruin it, but I was pleasantly surprised to that the new version completely surpassed my expectations and in my opinion, is almost better than the original because of the life lessons that it entails. Cinderella reignited my belief in fairy tales and anyone looking for a magical and classic Disney movie to watch will enjoy themselves while watching this amazing film.