By Geno McGahee
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has recently released A CINDERELLA STORY: STARSTRUCK to Digital and DVD, making it the sixth entry in the series and it was a really funny film. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Finley (Bailee Madison) is the outcast in her family. Since her dad died, she’s been at the mercy of her stepfamily and they are pretty ruthless with her, making her sleep in the barn and do all the chores around the house. Her stepsister, Saffron (Lillian Doucet-Roche), is full of herself and her brother, Kale (Richard Harmon), is a real jerk. Finley’s stepmother is pretty abusive and insecure. Finley, despite her bad life, has dreams of becoming an actress and the opportunity comes with auditions for a film hits the small town, with movie star, Jackson Stone (Michael Evans Behling).
The audition is a disaster and she is banned from the set by the director, Trevor (Matty Finochio). She sees her dreams go up in smoke, but she comes up with an idea. She becomes “Huck”, an actor with a mustache and southern drawl. She immediately gets in as Huck and the movie becomes really amusing from that point on.
Huck and Jackson become immediate friends and the producers and director keep giving Huck more lines and presence in the film. Bailee Madison is so funny in this film. At one point, Huck has to kiss Saffron and Madison’s expressions had me laughing. She was such a great choice for the film and considering how feminine she was, there was no way she could pass for a guy, but it made the movie that much funnier. This film doesn’t take itself very seriously. It just wants to entertain and it did. I was laughing a lot watching this one.
As Huck gets more attention and Finley keeps bouncing between personas, Kale gets very suspicious and begins putting the pieces of the puzzle together. He eventually figures out what’s going on and wants to expose the entire thing, leading to a big showdown and reveal.
A CINDERELLA STORY: STARSTRUCK is a very funny movie. Madison steals the show and is a great comedic actress. She stole the show, but Richard Harmon and Matty Finochio were great in their roles as well. Finochio was also in JINGLE ALL THE WAY 2 and he was great in that too. I knew I knew him from somewhere.
I highly recommend this one. It was a very funny film.
