Inspired by the most beloved of fables, "Happily N'Ever After" is an animated satirical retelling of the classic story of Cinderella. Once upon a time in Fairy Tale Land, the age-old balance between good and evil has been thrown out of whack. Frieda, Cinderella's power-mad stepmother, has formed an unholy alliance of evil to take on the good guys. With her own fairy tale spinning wildly out of control, Cinderella (a/k/a Ella) is forced to shed her damsel-in-distress trappings in order to seize control of her own destiny and lead the resistance without her Prince Charming. In a world of happy endings gone wrong, the race for control of the kingdom is on, with the fate of the venerable storyline 'Happily N'Ever After' hanging in the balance.— More here

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Sarah Michelle Gellar and spouse Freddie Prinze Jr. lack chemistry in animated story.
Alex Chun
Los Angeles Times
Putting a spin on classic fairy tales is nothing new, and unfortunately that's just what the Shrek-lite animated feature Happily N'Ever After brings to the big screen.

Underwhelming.
Peter Debruge
Variety
Opening the first Friday in January, "Happily N'Ever After" marks a New Year's resolution of sorts, kicking off 2007 with a shift away from talking-animal toons. Yet, this underwhelming entry is a kind of equally overused fairy tale revisionism, this time depicting what might happen to all such tales if Cinderella's wicked stepmother took control. "Happily" even shares a producer with "Shrek" (John H. Williams). Still, this colorful, crowd-pleasing toon is likely to deliver, if Lionsgate can take a page from the Weinstein Co.'s "Hoodwinked" playbook by adding marketing muscle and a wide release to its modest investment.

Lacking the genuine wit and humanism
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
From the number of walkouts at a recent screening,"Happily N'Ever After,"a slick piece of computer animation that can be described as a family film only in the sense that it's a film the whole family will want to avoid, will open quietly, do no business and be quickly forgotten. That is as it should be.

Two words of advice: N'Ever mind.
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
Happily N'Ever After carjacks "Cinderella" and puts her wicked stepmother behind the wheel. While this is comparable to what Shrek did to "Sleeping Beauty," the garish and shrill N'Ever is no Shrek. Not even close.