Mon, 04 Feb 2008
Movie: The prince and me, plus sequel
First of all: no, I'm not a huge fan of the genre. In fact, when I don't feel too good, I tend to avoid them, since they can depress me at times. But once in a while, a romantic comedy doesn't hurt, and I do kindof like them at times. Early last week, I picked up a DVD of the first movie at a low-price DVD shop nearby, and watched it.
The prince and me isn't my favourite movie in the genre; the plot surely is interesting, but I can't shake the feeling that things work out too easily in the end. Compare with Notting Hill, for example, where the two protagonists need to go through (I believe) three cycles of relationship/no relationship before the end of the movie; this, in my opinion, makes for far more interesting cinema.
But, all in all, it certainly was an interesting watch. I might think the plot could've used some improvement; but that doesn't mean it's bad. The entire visual aura of the movie is great; they went through quite some effort to make it look well. For instance, in a number of scenes it's obvious that they made the clothing of the characters blend in with the background; and yet they still managed to create diversity in those colors during scenes, by making the clothing differ just that tiny bit, and different parts of the background as well; the entire scene would be built up of one painting-like shot after another, yet all of them slightly different. Impressive.
And then I haven't even mentioned the casting, which was magnificent. Anyway.
Since I kindof liked the movie, and since the sequel DVD wasn't expensive, either, I got that DVD as well.
Boy. I've never quite seen a movie's sequel be so completely and utterly out of touch with its original. What horror.
Except for the male protagonist, not a single actor of the original cast returned for the sequel. They had good reason, so it seems.
The plot is utterly stupid. It revolves around an ancient law that made it somehow illegal for the couple to get married. Hello? Do you really think a king wouldn't have the influence to convince parliament to get rid of that law? Of course not, but then you wouldn't have a plot anymore. Now if the rest of the movie would make up for this silliness, then it wouldn't be so bad. Except it doesn't. This movie is bad in... let me count the ways.
- The plot error, as explained above. Also, the plot was quite incoherent, for the most part.
- The casting is terrible. The original King Haraald, father of the male protagonist, managed to create a believable king, with that somewhat eccentric and strange flair that most European royals seem to have these days. The queen had a bit of an iciness over her, warming up to an interesting character once she started to like Paige. Even the minor roles were so well played. In the sequel, none of this returned. The queen was just tight; an empty shell. The new Paige had a problem with overacting in some of the scenes. In fact, that was a common issue; I don't think I've ever quite seen this much overacting in one movie. Also, King Haraald didn't even remotely look like the original; not physically, and not in his acting.
- Speaking of the King, and given the plot of the original movie, he shouldn't even have returned for the sequel; he abdicated because he was terribly ill; he should've been dead, for crying out loud!
- The CGI was horrible. In the original movie, there were a few scenes where I'll bet CGI was used; not because it showed, but because I don't think it were possible to create that scene otherwise. In the sequel, you could tell when CGI was used due to the utter lack of natural feeling. Ever heard of a randomizer? It's what you use to avoid having a full room of butterflies all shake their wings at the exact same speed. Shudder.
- The "painting" feeling and attention to detail of the original movie was nowhere to be found. In fact, at some point they show a castle which supposedly is in Denmark somewhere, but it shows the Czech flag, instead. Ugh.
- Some of the gags were funny, but not as intended; because they were so silly. I've seen 3-year-olds make better jokes.
... I guess I could go on forever, but then there isn't much point in boring my audience. The short version: the original "The prince and me" is an interesting watch, but please forget about the horrible sequel...
... I guess there's a reason why they put it directly on DVD and skipped the theatres.
Some mail is welcome in /dev/null. Real mail, however, is welcome at my email address
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