Strange Magic is a magical feast for eyes and ears. The animated film is a match-up of Disney’s classic plots of a naive princess or princesses that lost their mother and needs to be rescued from some obscured dark place and a handsome usurper villain prince that’s vulturing on their vulnerability but paired with the mind of George Lucas and his love for creatures of out this world set on a semi-realistic world.

The film, inspired by ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ intertwined love polygons with a mix of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ that depicts a spellbound beast named Bog (Alan Cumming) that is not able to love, and just a pinch of ‘Star Wars’ style looking creatures. The storyline goes about a battle between the Dark Forest and the Fairy Kingdom, which is ruled by a caring and compassionate king with an uncanny resemblance to George Lucas (voiced by Alfred Molina) and his two daughters, Marianne (Evan Rachel Wood) whose next in line to rule the kingdom and sweet and bubbly Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull). Marianne’s heart was broken by an arrogant Beauty and the Beast Gaston-type prince named Roland (Sam Palladio) in a heart wrenching traumatizing way. From that day forward she swore not to fall in love again and becomes an independent woman singing “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” to make such a point even stronger.

As a contrast, Marianne’s sister, Dawn, is falling in love with every guy that crosses her path. Naïve as she could be she is blind to see that her true love has always been right in front of her and with the classic Disney plot from Sleeping Beauty only her true love can break the spell she has been put under. Even her name Dawn is inspired by this Disney’s classic, as Aurora is a synonym of Dawn. We sat down with Meredith Anne Ball and we asked her what was the hardest part about making the film and she humorously shared that it was the waiting to get the call about the part that was the hardest. She added, “Gary was very helpful, Gary and Marius, Marius was great specially with the signing as I had to sing very young sounding.” She had to find a place with Dawn as she described that she wasn’t the kid to go out to parties and try to fit in as opposed to Dawn which was the classic teenager trying to find her place.

Dawn is eventually kidnapped by the Bog King, which asks as a ransom to get back the love potion that the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristin Chenoweth) prepared for the determined and crazy in-love miniature elf named Sunny (Elijah Kelley). We asked Elijah Kelly about how he is related to his character and he jokingly said, “I obviously was never in the friend zone, whom am I kidding? I lived most of my adolescent years in the friend zone.” He shared with us how he connected with Sunny, as he knows how going to the end of the world for some one you love feels. Sunny tries to save Dawn from the Dark Forest and he would go to any lengths to get her back safely.

Marianne flies to the rescue of his sister and the villain prince gets an army to confront and finish the Bog King, but the magical love potion, naughtily spread by an adorable and mischievous mouse-like character named imp, creates unexpected and uncontrollable attractions between various characters giving the film some comedic moments.

The movie while making fun of its overuse of the song “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” by the Temptations, flies through forests and caves with the direction of Gary Rydstrom, to thread some gorgeously animated scenes in a juxtaposing fantasy setting with all the elements of good and evil that George Lucas films would usually have.

With an astounding selection of pop songs from the last 60 decades, Meredith said that it was her favorite thing about the movie, “The music is everything to me and the animation was beautiful.” Elijah told us, “My favorite musical moment was when the plummets sang the Beyonce song… We can say we worked with Beyonce now. I love the music in the high sequences.”

This beautiful mess with the array of visual indulgences makes up in a strong way for the moral of the story that beauty can come in chaotic and unexpected ways and that love is the underlying binding force within ourselves. On this different approach Meredith believes, “if it even helps the kids tough it out, I think it's worth it.” Undeniably entertaining, and full of treasures. It’s a treat for a family night out.

Strange Magic is now playing in theatres!