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Ice Princess

Ice Princess (2005)

March. 17,2005
|
6
|
G
| Drama Comedy Family

With the help of her coach, her mom, and the boy who drives the Zamboni machine, nothing can stop Casey from realizing her dream to be a champion figure skater.

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Reviews

Spoonatects
2005/03/17

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

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Kailansorac
2005/03/18

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

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Bergorks
2005/03/19

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

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Derrick Gibbons
2005/03/20

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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Python Hyena
2005/03/21

The Ice Princess (2005): Dir: Tim Fywell / Cast: Michelle Trachtenberg, Kim Cattrall, Joan Cusack, Hayden Panettiere, Trevor Blumas: Family film about achievement although the screenwriter certainly didn't achieve creative plotting. Michelle Trachtenberg plays a physics major who must do a project so to enter Harvard so she indulges in figure skating. Standard plot with conventional developments including the pushy mother who eventually attends the skating championships just when her daughter needs it. The strict coach will see potential after previously denying it. Director Tim Fywell creates reasonable family viewing but the film itself is so bland and flat that it is unfortunate that Trachtenberg wasn't able to find more solid material to advance her talent. She is capable of much better but here she basically follows predictable storytelling before arriving to the obvious. Kim Cattrall as her coach is also capable of much better. Here she discourages before being won over. Joan Cusack as Trachtenberg's mother is no surprise as another discouraging individual whom will be proved wrong. Hayden Panettiere plays Cattrall's daughter in what isn't just a flat role, but her concluding decision seems contrived. Trachtenberg was wonderful in Harriet the Spy but she is in need of a decent script and this isn't it. The figure skating theme reduced to shoddy writing. Score: 3 / 10

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gruiva
2005/03/22

The main character is ridiculous trying to look like a physics expert, while being an ignorant. This movie makes a mess out of very basic physics lows, like: speed * mass = acceleration!!! I can understand that the script maker could have missed his 14 years old physics classes, but I cannot accept that nobody working on the movie was able to notice. The movie is very emotional, showing good life lessons, encouraging the children to become good skaters. The story of the movie is good, the actors play well, but it remains a bad after taste because of how ignorant were all the persons involved in the movie. Consumer protection organization should react.

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MeloDee
2005/03/23

Ice Princess was, in the barest of terms, a feel good family- perhaps with a more mother-daughter slant- movie.Actress Michelle Trachtenburg, perhaps better-known for her role in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Inspector Gadget", put on an excellent performance. She portrays the clumsiness, shyness, and insecurities of her character, Casey Carlyle, with incredible believability. The effort that she put into learning to skate for the movie really shows as well. Her movements were graceful and solid.Hayden Panitierre's performance was a solid one, as usual. She continues even today to display a talent beyond her years. Whilst many of the actors and actresses paying high schoolers in cinemas are actually in their early (or late) twenties, Hayden Panitierre was only around 14 years old during this movie. Yet she manages to fit in seamlessly with the more experienced Michelle and the respective actresses playing their mothers, Kim Cattrall and Joan Cusack.Panitierre's main weakness in the film is her skating. Her movements simply weren't very fluid and graceful, and when they were, they were always on the more simplistic moves. In fact, most of her skating was incredibly simplistic.The plot of the movie is quite simple. It follows the story of Casey Carlyle, a physics wiz kid who has to choose between going to Harvard or following her desire to skate. Her mother, a college English professor, holds a demeaning attitude towards skating, considering it neither a real sport nor a valid career option.On the flip side of the coin, there is Gen Harwood- the most popular girl in the school, and the daughter of former big-time skater Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall). Her mother relentlessly pushes her towards skating, even though Gen has no real passion for it.The girls' paths crossed. Of course, the result is pretty easy to guess.The main faults of this movie are its goofs. Gen Harwood, even though she is slightly out of shape and not very passionate about skating, should after years of practice under her strict mother, have been at least a little better than Casey Carlyle. Even from the time the movie started, Hayden Panitierre was clearly a worst skater than Michelle Trachtenburg- so much worst, that it acted as a glitch in the storyline.Another goof would be the short time that it took Casey to become a truly accomplished skater. Even with "natural talent" and years beforehand of skating on her pond in the winter- as well as biking everywhere she went as an excuse for her good physical condition- it did not make sense. A friend of Gen's told her, "It took me 2 years to land my double." Guess how long it took Casey? Nonetheless, the movie seems to get away with it in a sense. The soundtrack is beautiful, and Michelle Trachtenburg was wonderful to watch.In a way though, the movie seems a little insulting to real life skaters, who truly put years of effort into their sport. Yet even when the movie is insulting those skaters through Casey's under-earned brilliance, it points out the hardships of skating through the problems that Gen and her friends face. Gen's grade's suffered, and the father of one of her friends had to work two jobs to pay for his daughter's skating expenses. All of the girls were on a strict diet.Although Tina Harwood helps the movie by her many lines talking about the difficulties and hardships of skating, and even though we know Casey did train, so little of the training was shown. Emphasis on training, to me, is a must for a truly superb sports movie.Along with Tina, another character who seemed to bring the movie a little more down to earth was Nikki, a.k.a "the Jumping Shrimp" played by Kirsten Olsen. She was the youngest, but the most brilliant of the skaters, in reality and in the movie- more than likely because Kirsten is an actual figure skater.In summary, the film has its good and bad points. As noted before, though, the movie doesn't focus a lot on the training and doesn't seem to be about keeping things real or accurate in that sense. It focuses more on Casey's relationship with her mother and her following her dream, and the fears and insecurities surrounding that. Those are the times when the film is truly brilliant, and gives it an almost magical feeling despite its flaws.If you are a fan of ice skating you will either love this or hate this movie. I cheated and decided to take the middle ground. In a way, you could call this a guilty pleasure for me. I enjoyed it and could see myself watching it again, but I feel that it failed on many levels.7/10.

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moonspinner55
2005/03/24

Teen physics whiz (played by Michelle Trachtenberg, a Scarlett Johansson lookalike with a gorgeous crop of brunette hair) takes up ice-skating at the local rink as a means of studying kinetic energy--pretty soon, she's donning a leotard and performing in a pageant! The downside is, smart girls never get the guys--although a Mark Ruffalo lookalike who works at the rink just loves Trachtenberg's scientific babbling. Disney film for young girls hasn't a whiff of originality, with a bland sense of humor and snotty, slangy Lolita wanna-bes on the ice. As Trachtenberg's mom, Joan Cusack acts like she's ready for the Motion Picture Retirement Home, however Kim Cattrall's work as the hard-nosed skating coach isn't bad until the character is turned into a formula cutthroat. Très harsh! ** from ****

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