Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I don’t know what to make of this one.

The trailer plays it coy, but there’s certainly some value in the fairy-tale premise. Does it deliver? Well, here’s a spy who’s seen it to tell us what they think:

Harry:

Wednesday evening I sat in on a test screening of "Penelope", with Christina Ricci, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Dinkelage and James McAvoy. The film concerns a young girl named, duh, Penelope (Ricci) who, due to some inappropriate romantic behavior by her blueblood ancestor toward one of his servants, is cursed with a pig nose that can only turn back to a normal proboscis if she is accepted by "one of her own".

The problem with the film is that Ricci in a pig nose is awfully cute, which goes against the premise that all the guys find her repulsive and she'll never be accepted. You ever see that ad in the magazines trying to get donations for babies in South America with deformed palates? Those kids are so depressingly ugly that it makes me want to cry. Whereas the pig nose isn't ugly so much as interesting. Besides, pig snout or not, this is still Christina Ricci, for God's sake. I saw "Prozac Nation", I saw "Black Snake Moan"; she could have a whole pig's head on her shoulders and I'd still do her (I figured I'd be the first to say it- I'm sure someone was bound to say something along those lines in the talkbacks).

Another flaw with the film is Reese Witherspoon, playing the Eve Arden part of brassy best friend with a leather jacket and a Vespa scooter who decides to show the sheltered Penelope what life outside her mansion is like. I realize Reese is listed as a producer of the film and the money men may have demanded that she appear in it in order to secure an investment, but she sticks out like a sore thumb. She might have been better off playing the part of the marriage broker trying to set Christina up with a rich guy, but maybe she wanted to play against type and stretch her acting muscles, and no one had the guts to say no to Ms. Producer. It's not Halle-Berry-give-back-your-Oscar bad, but the part could have been casted better.

The sets are wonderful in a Tim Burton/George Miller "Babe: Pig in the City" way, the story is entertaining and humorous enough, and Peter Dinkelage is excellent as a reporter obsessed with getting a picture of Penelope. There's a cameo by Nick Frost that made me smile, but no one else seemed to know or care who he was. All in all, this is a movie for young girls and women with low self-esteem, which is entertaining enough that a guy can take one "for the team" and sit though it with their girlfriend who bitched and moaned that she saw "Transformers" with him, why can't he see something she likes once in a while, and he can look at Christina Ricci and think about whether he'd still do her if she had a pig nose. And on the way home, his girlfriend can ask if he'd still love her if she had a pig nose, and he can say of course he would, and maybe get some loving out of it.

No names please, I'm Shy.