Missed target

Aimed at young girls, its message is mixed at best, occasionally extolling positive virtues, but mostly applying a morality that is convenient for the story and its heroine | Andrew Coffin

Cinderella Story (rated PG for mild language and innuendo) offers little that will appeal to its target demographic (primarily 10- to 13-year-old girls), and almost nothing to anyone else. It’s a cliched, mostly lifeless trifle, most praiseworthy for what it’s not - in that it’s not particularly profane, crude, or offensive, as children’s movies go.

Teen star Hilary Duff (formerly of the Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire) takes on the role of a modern day Cinderella, in - where else? - the San Fernando Valley. This fairy-tale update takes a form similar to many Shakespearian modernizations, with bits and pieces of the original showing up in contemporary dress. Sam (Ms. Duff), for instance, doesn’t leave behind a glass slipper at the fateful ball (here a high-school Halloween dance), but instead drops her cell phone during her hasty pre-midnight exit.