Review of Cinderella

The 1997 television remake of Cinderella is watchable if you didn't grow up on the 1966 version with Lesley Ann Warren. This remake seemed to be working so hard to please so many people that it really doesn't. Although I admire the attempt to make the story more PC by making the cast multi-ethnic, I found it distracting to the story. A white king (a bland Victor Garber)and a black queen (an over the top Whoopee Goldberg) have a son/prince whose Puerto Rican (Carlos Montalban). Cinderella's stepmother is white (Bernadette Peters, superb as always) but the stepsisters are black and white (Natalie Desselle and Veanne Cox, who both appeared to graduate from the Whoopi Goldberg School of Overacting). The producers for some reason also felt the need to enhance the Rodgers and Hammerstein score with two songs that Rodgers wrote for other shows. Cinderella and the Prince duet on "The Sweetest Sounds" which Rodgers wrote for the musical NO STRINGS and Peters sings "Falling in Love with Love" which Rodgers wrote with Lorenz Hart for THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE, a song which seemed unbelievably out-of-place in the story and seemed to have been added just to give Peters a solo. Then you have the battle of the Divas, Brandy and Whitney Houston, as Cinderalla and her Fairy Godmother. Houston seems to be making a concerted effort to sing Brandy off the screen and she almost succeeds in their primary battle, a song called "Impossible/It's Possible". I guess if you've never seen the show before it might be worth a look, but if you grew up with Lesley Ann Warren like I did, this version will disappoint.