sasya

Usually I don't mind a good modern fairy tale, even if they are by their nature utterly predictable. As long as they have just a little charm, a small point to make - even if it is fortune cookie wisdom - and some likable characters, I'll happily let myself be entertained and block out the real world for a while. But Princess Diaries has none of those redeeming features. It's blunt and heavy handed, choosing slapstick over wit, archetypes over character development, and offering a stuttering, wobbling closure (is it about finding personal courage, which you can argue the film has been about from the first scene, or is it about thinking about others which is nothing the film has given any attention to but that is what the final speech is about?).

Up from one to two stars for the decent cast, who do what they can with what they're given.

I have no idea how this uninspired flick can get the rating it has here! A romantic comedy with an IMDb score of 6.8 is rare, so I thought I was in for a treat, but not so. Let's see what we don't get:

• Characterisation. The male lead is an absolute blank, we don't know any more about him when the film ends than we did the moment our heroine first lays eyes on him. The female lead is the thinnest of archetypes with a sprinkling of Greek ethnicity - unhappy with her place in life longing for change (her dream is apparently to substitute her waitress job in the family business for a job as telephone travel agent in another part of the family business), which some curlers and contacts are key ingredients in providing. The respective families are as stereotypical as you could want them.

• A love story. Why the happy couple are attracted to each other remains a mystery, but fair enough - love at first sight I presume. But what keeps them attracted, what do they get from each other, what do they share? Where is the passion? We don't get anything here!

• A plot! Nothing happens in this film - no serious obstacles, no interesting dilemmas, no twists or surprises.

What you do get is ham fisted humor, which is mostly embarrassing but made me chuckle a few times and decent acting (though it can be hard to judge as the range of emotions is really small) - worth one small star each, taking this bore from one to three small stars.

I didn't know this was a remake, so I thought I was going to see one of IMDb's top 250 films. I was disappointed.

There's not enough suspenseful buildup - we get a flash back showing what's going on too early which gave me an instant drop out of the suspense of disbelief. Revealing what happened so early both detracts from the detective story ("what can be happening here?") and the thriller ("maybe he's really delusional?").

How the story is finally resolved is a complete mystery, and breaks the fundamental rules the plot is build on.

That said, there's nothing wrong with the performances, one plot twist was unexpected, and a few scenes are creepy in the right way.