Arts & Entertainment
 

‘Prince' just another cliché

Stiles' latest effort fills out chick flick formula with no original romance

by Ray Hafner
The Daily Cougar

On the surface, the warm and endearing The Prince and Me would seem to be the perfect fairy tale romance, and audiences skewing heavily female will probably reward it as such. But in the end, the story fails to reach such great heights and ultimately makes for a completely forgettable saccharine chick flick. It'll leave estrogen-addled girls in a tizzy but feeling empty the next day when the film forgets to call.

Princess movies have become Hollywood's story line du jour and a theatergoer's guilty pleasure. Given the choice between The Rock's latest opus and The Princess Diaries, the discerning film critic should have to go with the latter. Unfortunately, this script suffers from a rush job that simply sketches romance rather than paints the whole picture.

In a movie about a Danish prince who heads to Wisconsin and enrolls in college to get hot coeds to flash him, it's probably not that important to have a believable plot. So little things (like the way everyone in Denmark speaks English with British accents) don't actually matter.

So Prince Edvard "Eddie" Valdemaar Dangaard lands at the University of Wisconsin intent on finding the buxom young women he's seen in a Girls Gone Wild-like commercial. Don't fret ladies, as soon as he meets the princess-to-be, Paige Morgan, he gives up his philandering ways and decides to become a better student.

Played by Julia Stiles, Morgan is an overachieving nerd too intent on medical school to look at boys, much less date them. British newcomer Luke Mably plays the prince. Unfortunately for him and Stiles, the only place that their characters find actual chemistry is in science class. The romance is a paint-by-numbers bit -- one that works, but only because the audience has seen it a hundred times before.

It takes the couple all the way until Thanksgiving to realize they're meant for each other (but for some reason the prince stops looking for other girls and buckles down in class) and the sparks fly after a lawn mower race. One might wonder how Wisconsin, home of minus 40 degree wind chill factors can have such a sunny lawn mower race in November where everyone wears shorts, but then again, it's a fairy tale.

The movie is all about female empowerment; but then again, it's a princess movie. Only in this princess movie, a girl can have an incredibly sensitive boy, a doting public (in overhead shots it looks like Denmark has 40 people) and a medical career -- all this while being the queen. You go girl!

Somehow though, the whole thing isn't a wash. It has problems galore but this genre and plot works so well that it's nearly impossible to totally screw up.

The Prince & Me

Rated: PG

Starring Julia Stiles, Luke Mably

Paramount Pictures

The verdict: A fun parlor game is trying to spot the real Danish actors and the ones who think they're in jolly old England.

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