A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, Walt Disney Pictures, Dir. Garry Marshall - Starring Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, John Rhys-Davies, Heather Matarazzo, Chris Pine, Callum Blue, Kathleen Marshall, Tom Poston, Joel McCrary
Princesses are usually stereotyped as elegant, classy, and non-abrasive young ladies who are ready to take charge of their country. Princess Diaries tends to be the opposite of this, as a crude and predictable collection of girl fluff and terrible writing. With only a few good laughs to stand on and one prized actress/singer, Garry Marshall doesn't have a lot to work with - so he cuts out on work for cut-and-paste crap.
We leave off last time, where Mia (Hathaway) is the young princess of the fictional land of Genovia (where the villages are made up of Annie-style orphanages and other various Americana stereotypes), who lives with her grandmother Queen Clarisse (Andrews). But now an old law in its Parliament says that she must marry or forfeit the crown - and an evil lord (Rhys-Davies) is planning to set Mia up with his son (Pine) so he can establish heir to the throne. Singing, dancing, and other stupidity ensues.
Anne Hathaway has the acting abilities to keep you interested for a good five minutes until you realize that she's not going to show any realism in her character whatsoever. She's attractive as a given, but she becomes slowly boring and unoriginal as the plot unwinds. Julie Andrews, thank God, is the one actress in the crowd who has still got the talent, and can even show it off brightly in the stupidest of roles. She's still got her voice and personality to be this whimsical old woman that she plays. But when Raven Simone came into the picture, I decided to burn my ticket for good measure. Two really annoying maids also show some stupid roles Marshall had to make up, and he decided to bring back Mia's friend Lilly for no good reason. Ugh. No comment.
Garry Marshall employs every trick in the book - falling into fountains, close embraces, cat-chase-dog scenes, quick and unexplained relationships - everything possible to make this film fall flat like a warm champagne. I realize that Marshall doesn't need to be unique for a children's movie, but there's harm to it if he did anyway. It would've made it a little more enjoyable for me. For the few good laughs, we have Larry Miller playing a silly Italian hairdresser, and John Rhys-Davies at his possible worst villian in a movie this month.
I hope this is the last entry in the Princess Diaries, because I found myself laughing more at the utter nonsense that lay on the screen before me than at the actual comedic material. This one lines up to Marshall's other annual flop "Raising Helen", even though I'm sure this film will cash in a bit more for the little girls. But for now, This 'Royal Engagement' was a royal piece of trash.
1/4 stars
