Remember how I told y'all about when I need to fall asleep at night I watch comforting movies to help lure to me sleepy-land. Well here's one of my biggest guilty pleasures that I tend to watch on a yearly basis to help me go to sleep at night: "The Princess Diaries."I very clearly remember seeing this movie way back in 2001. Woof. This movie is nine years old! Anne Hathaway, look at you now! My grandmother took me and my brothers and though I thought the movie looked funny from the trailers, I thought it was HEH-larious in the theaters. Even though it's wicked schlock-y and Gary Marshall directs all his movies like they're a bad sitcom from the 1950s with awkward gags, Anne Hathaway gives the role of Princess Mia Thermopolis her all and makes it work! Some of her stupid pratfalls and ridiculous comments still hold up today. But the rest of the movie kind of falls flat and feels very 2001. Erik Von Detten? What have you done since this came out? Celebrity Mole? I thought so. Mandy Moore, stop being all bratty and stupid and singing a ridiculous uber-pop "Stupid Cupid" on a beach. Nobody cares about you. Nevermind one of the most awkward to look at actresses to star in TV and film, Heather Matarazzo.
Terrifying.
The saving grace of these movies is Dame Julie Andrews. Sidenote: Is she a dame? If not, she should be. She grants us the gift of her presence in both "The Princess Diaries" and "The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement" (the second being released in 2004) and does her best to muddle though the schlock, making the movies watchable and rewatchable. For every awful scene with Mandy Moore (in #1) or Raven (in #2) there is an excellent scene with Julie Andrews and that makes it all better. She makes every movie she's in practically perfect and these are no exceptions.
Of course, the first movie is endlessly better than the second one and I almost wish the second one hadn't been made. The jokes are better in the first, the plot is wayy lame in the 2nd, and even though #2 features Chris Pine as a future Captain Kirk and a young thumb sucking Abigail Breslin (in one of the lamest parts of the movie as Princess Mia takes the stupid children from the orphanage and makes them walk in a parade with her) - the cast can't seem to get past the even worse jokes and gags and ridiculous plot devices and stupid characters that penetrate the humor of the movie.
So give me a good old "Princess Diaries" any day. I don't care. It cheers me up. It makes me happy. We're all entitled to those guilty pleasures. And so be it if I love Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. I'm just glad they never made a third one.
Patrick Approval Rating:
The Princess Diaries: 7/10
The Princess Diaries 2- A Royal Engagement: 4/10
Don't forget the worst part of PD2...making Mason from Dead Like Me into a LAMEOID!!!
ReplyDeleteBut then you remember that Julie Andrews sings in PD2 and you're right...she makes life better.
Pretty sure she's a Dame...if not she's the Dame of My Heart