Every Christmas, there are certain films which perfectly embody the festive spirit. Whether it's a small boy flying through the air with an animated snowman, Alastair Sim's Scrooge realising the error of his ways, Bing Crosby dreaming of a White Christmas or Jimmy Stewart learning to value family life (with some prompting from an angel called Clarence), cinema has the power to create a warm, fuzzy glow to stave off the winter chill.

Now comes Kevin Lima's smart and sassy tale of a storybook princess at large in New York City, which cleverly upholds and subverts fairy-tale conventions. Combining animation and live action, Enchanted has all the ingredients of a modern classic: great performances, rumbustious comic set pieces, a sprinkling of romance and just enough heartfelt sentiment to draw a goofy, contented grin.

Screenwriter Bill Kelly affectionately pokes fun at Disney's back catalogue of fables (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White et al), contrasting the idealism of the animated world with the cynicism and shattered dreams of 21st-century reality. When the two collide, it's hysterical. Thus, when the vivacious heroine sings for some animal pals to help her clean a New York apartment, her melodious call is answered by rats, cockroaches and pigeons.

In the colourful, hand-drawn kingdom she calls home, Giselle (voiced by Amy Adams) is poised to marry her sweetheart, dashing Prince Edward (James Marsden), except his scheming mother, Queen Nerissa (Susan Sarandon), is dead set against the union. In time-honoured tradition, Nerissa pushes poor Giselle down a well and transports the girl into the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, where Giselle (now flesh and blood, and still played by Adams) meets dishy divorce lawyer Robert (Patrtick Dempsey) and his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Meanwhile, Prince Edward follows Giselle into the real world, unaware that the Queen's henchman Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) is at large in the city, armed with deadly poisoned apples.

Enchanted is an absolute delight, with laughs and tears aplenty for audiences of all ages, and a couple of fantastically overblown musical numbers including a full-blown spectacular in Central Park. Adams plays her role with boundless charm, immune to the rage or despair which seems to blight New York City and its loveless denizens. She invests herself completely in the character, without a hint of irony, and we fall headlong in love with Giselle, wishing we could gambol through life with such carefree grace.

Dempsey is the perfect love interest, slowly mellowing under Giselle's tutelage, and Spall and Sarandon ramp up the hiss-boo factor as the pantomime villains who get their comeuppance.

A chipmunk called Pip (voiced by Jeff Bennett and Lima), who can talk in his cartoon habitat, but is reduced to squeaks and miming in the real world, steals the show for younger viewers.

Enchanted - you most certainly will be.

Simon J.Smith and Steve Hickner's computer-animated adventure Bee Movie introduces us to the thankless existence of the humble honeybee. In this miniature world, which draws obvious comparisons with Pixar's A Bug's Life, a single worker insect literally changes the world by pursuing a course of action, which he believes is in the best interest of the hive.

Unfortunately, noble intentions pollinate catastrophe and so the very same creature has to overcome his physical limitations to save his buzzin' kind from extinction. In the process, bees and humans learn to live together in some strange version of cartoon harmony.

Co-written by Jerry Seinfeld, who also voices the lead character, Bee Movie is a fitfully amusing romp that peddles many obviously puns and gags: "A perfect report card - all b's!" The film pokes fun at myriad celebrities including Sting, Larry King and Ray Liotta, who lend their dulcet tones to their animated alter egos.

Another Hollywood superstar is stung during a climactic action sequence when the human heroine faces the terrifying prospect of taking the controls of a jumbo jet a la Karen Black in Airport 1975.

"I can't fly a plane!" she gasps.

"Isn't John Travolta a pilot?" asks her bee compatriot. "How hard can it be?"

The wisecracking central character is Barry B. Benson (voiced by Seinfeld), a high-flying college graduate facing the grim prospect of a life of servitude for Honex, the hive's honey-making operation. To the despair of his parents (Barry Levinson, Kathy Bates), Barry yearns to escape the endless drudgery. He dreams of flying free with the so-called pollen jocks but as his best pal Adam (Matthew Broderick) reminds him, "You can't just decide to be a pollen jock. You have to be bred for it." Before doing his duty in the hive, Barry joins the jocks for a mission in the outside world.