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`Ella' is less than enchanting  One of the smaller hard lessons
a modern child faces is realizing that the people who make
movies often have no idea what they're doing. "Ella Enchanted,"
the 1997 book by Gail Carson Levine, is by all accounts a
classy, nimbly written satire of fairy tales that serves as an
exemplary fairy tale itself. "Ella Enchanted" the movie is an
overcalculated fusion of "Shrek" and "The Princess Bride" with
all the smarts replaced by smartass. It appears to be based on
the book in the same way that mammals are based on land.  At
least the cast is engaging and familiar, although the actors
have been coached to flail around the cheap-looking sets. Anne
Hathaway ("The Princess Diaries"), she of saucer eye and amiable
demeanor, is Ella of Frell, who at birth was given the gift of
obedience by a well-meaning fairy named Lucinda (Viveca A. Fox,
shaking her boo-tay in a misguided homegirl turn). This
unfortunately means that when someo