The Princess Diaries (2001)

Fantastic!

Beautiful, moving film.

As Good As It Gets

A different way of telling a story

Honestly, the first time I've actually seen this film was when I was pimply teenage girl who also dreamed to become a princess one day. So, that time I found the plot very impressive and captivating. These lovely stories where unattractive freaky geeks suddenly turn into beautiful self-confident kickass people always seemed very fascinating and inspiring to me. To my amazement, after watching "The Princess Diaries" about seven years later I'm still claiming this story is quite convincing. I laughed at Anne Hathaway's grimace and other characters's jokes were pretty amusing. What's of great importance is the main message the author wants to share with the audience (from my point of view). The premise is that we all often do not value the simple things until we lose them by reason of our stupidity. We don't value our real friends (who love our attractively weird personality, not our beatiful appearance) until we reject them for some popular guy built of lie and flattery. We don't value our privacy and freedom until we become the subject of gossiping. And we definitely don't value our happy and carefree childhood until we have to grow up and make responsible decisions. Anyway, the movie is neither tiresome nor second-rate and I'd higly recommend watching it with your family or just by yourself. The excellent acting of Anne Hathaway (and watching her clumsy geeky character transforming into cut a dashing figure), Julie Andrews, Héctor Elizondo and other exceptionally talented actors certainely worth seeing.

"The Princess Diaries" is an American movie from 15 years ago that runs for almost 2 hours. It was the big screen breakthrough for Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway. And even if her character is the undisputed lead here, they still chose Julie Andrews (whose character really anybody could have played) as the first credit. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, even if Hathaway was pretty much a nobody back then still. But lets talk a bit more about the contents of the film. It is a nice story from ugly duckling becoming a beautiful swan and even a princess later on. Of course, it was pretty difficult to make a stunning actress like Hathaway look bad in the first third of the movie. The first genre description here on IMDb is comedy and I think there are some funny moments, but overall I would really see it more as a family film, maybe even a romance movie. Sadly,t he romance part is as uncreative as predictable.Some good moments in terms of Hathaway's performance and in terms of the script also make this one work. Nonetheless I must say that the entire royalty story was not really necessary here. It did not add too much for me. Instead, I would have preferred maybe a film that would have run for 90 minutes only and been more of a high school comedy. The movie actually attempts too much and sometimes it seems a touch of try-hard in achieving genuinely funny comedy. And there are many occasions when they do not succeed. I would say Hathaway is almost too good of an actress (also back then already when she wasn't even 20) for the material here. This is a decent film, but not one that could not have been better on more than a handful occasions. A sequel was really not too justified. Finally, before I finish the review, I don't want to forget to mention Mandy Moore. I am a great fan of her and it is always nice to see her, especially her "Stupid Cupid" performance. This one may have been among the main reasons why she got cast in "A Walk to Remember", one of my favorite films of all time and there she plays a completely different character to the vain spoiled school girl here. As a whole, I recommend "The Princess Diaries", mostly for Anne Hathaway's star-making turn.

Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) is a dorky invisible teen who everybody steps on. She lives with her mother (Caroline Goodall) in an old fire station in San Francisco. Her only friend is Lilly Moscovitz (Heather Matarazzo). Her dead father's mother Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews) of Genovia has come to town to tell her that she's the only heir for the throne. She is shocked since her mother never told her any of this and she doesn't want to rule. Joe (Héctor Elizondo) is her new driver. She is given princess lessons by her grandmother. She is picked on by mean girl Lana Thomas (Mandy Moore) and her friends, but she is infatuated with Lana's jock boyfriend Josh Bryant. Meanwhile Michael Moscovitz is in love with Mia.There are many things wrong with this movie. It's cheesy. It has a few too many stupidity. The mother needs to be played by somebody more compelling. The one thing that this movie has is the lovely Anne Hathaway. She is terrific as a dork. She actually makes the cliché ugly duckling work. She does great pratfalls even when the movie turns into a slapstick affair. And then it has the regal Julie Andrews who can really class things up when she wants to.

I love this movie because it was funny and it's better than what they produce on Disney now. Old Disney was the BOMB!!! New Disney now freaking sucks because it's not authentic anymore. What they have now are lame and cheesy movies and they aren't even funny. I am sorry for this generation, even if there are movies like frozen and other movies that encourage feminism, Disney can't produce anything that is good. I stopped watching Disney channel because of this. People actually like this and I am pretty sure how awesome it was in the early 2000.disney movies are too predictable. Even the shows are predictable Sorryifi disappoint anyone but it's the truth. Disney can't make anything funny