I *thought* it didn't look so good...

In his review of the film Ella Enchanted, Orson Scott Card writes:

"Here’s a helpful hint. If you haven’t read the marvelous young adult novel by Gail Carson Levine, do not read it before seeing the film.

Because if you have read the book, you will spend the first half of the movie absolutely furious at the idiotic, formulaic destruction of the story by the screenwriters.

They have taken a witty, warm, truthful story and for no intelligible reason formulized it and camped it up so that almost nothing from the original survives – except the fundamental premise of a girl who is magically compelled to obey any direct order.

Unfortunately, since they did keep the title and the premise, it will be virtually impossible for anyone to ever make a film that is actually based on the novel Ella Enchanted. So this “pod movie” has effectively killed and replaced the real thing as it might have existed on the screen."