I hate to sound like a grouch. No, wait. That's not true. I am a grouch. What I hate is to sound like someone who doesn't like movies. That's not true. I love 'em. I spend more time at theaters than any place other than my own bed. As a result I become a little less tolerant of recycled predictable plots. They don't show any originality and worse yet they assume that you the viewer aren't smart enough to notice. That's exactly the problem with this movie. The premise is ancient and creaky. That would be okay if they found an interesting new way to tell it but no effort seems to have been extended in that direction.
It's a shame really because fine performances by Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews and Hector Elizondo are basically wasted. Hathaway plays 15 year old Mia Thermopolis, an awkward girl in a private school. She lives alone with her mother in the sort of delightfully quirky house that only people in movies live in. Her estranged grandmother (Andrews) comes to visit and reveals that Mia is actually a princess. Her parents separated because her mother wanted a normal life instead of one as royalty in a tiny European country. She never told Mia about her heritage. Now her father has died in an accident and the country needs an heir to the throne. Mia's grandmother has come to convince her to take her rightful position as princess. Mia isn't amused by this. She can't even get through a speech in class without losing her lunch, never mind run a country.
At this point we have one of the most painfully cliched moments when they transform Mia from ugly duckling to beautiful princess through the incredibly complex act of taking off her glasses and combing her hair. Is it any wonder that Clark Kent could successfully hide his secret identity as Superman with just a pair of glasses? Clearly that's an amazing disguise because Mia goes from awkward to fashion model by losing those specs.
Naturally, everyone who ignored her before (literally, she gets sat on frequently) is now fawning over her sudden beauty. She now has to choose what boy she wants to kiss first, the snobby jerk who only noticed her when she became a princess or the nice guy who liked her before. Hmmm... I wonder how that could possibly end? Then because of her sudden popularity Mia gets to do things she couldn't before and forgets her old friends. Yeah, I haven't seen that before in a movie. This story is so predictable that you could sit around marking off items on a giant cliche checklist as the movie goes on.
Worse yet there seemed to be parts of the movie missing. There are numerous things brought up in the movie that either never pay off or just simply disappear. Mia's mom considers dating her teacher early in the film. This would seem to be a fairly large problem for Mia but it is never mentioned again. The two simply show up as a couple late in the film with no further explanation. Then there is a potential gag with a drunk at a party that never goes anywhere. Or how about things that are never explained properly, like why it is so important that Mia accept her princess title? There seems to be a romance between Mia's grandmother and the head of security but it is left annoyingly vague.
Basically it boils down to a handful of talented actors hopelessly spinning their wheels in a predictable disorganized mess of a film. If you just want a movie that doesn't challenge you at all, instead just going through the motions, then this is the one for you. Everyone else should steer clear of this fairy tale wannabe.
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