Princess Diaries 2
 

My girlfriend will not stop talking about this movie. She owns the first one and I've seen it with her a few times. I'm starting to think she has a woman crush on Anne Hathaway. Anyone else goign to see this when it comes out? I'll be there with the lady friend, staring longingly at anne ;)

i am so excited for this! i own and love the first one!

Julie Andrews sings it in (or on the soundtrack) so I'm going to definately see it.

Count me in on this one. I don't know if I will be able to talk people into going to see this with me, but I'm going to try...

i cant wait for this to come out! :)

A few friends and I have talked about going to see it on opening day :)

I loved the first movie and I've read the first 4(?) books of the series :D

I am so excited for this movie to come out!
I own the first one- its one of my favorites. :D

i heard that lindsay lohan was on the soundtrack, but not Julie Andrews. That is very cool, taking it back to the Sound of Music

I think it looks cute so I'm sure I will go see it. Plus, I love Julie Andrews. :)

Okay, so I hadn't seen previews for it until tonight (yay for seeing HP 3 a second time :D ).....I cannot WAIT to go see this movie. (But I want to know what happened to Michael?!?!?!)

Note: The Special Edition DVD of the first Princess Diaries comes out on August 3rd.
Inside this new DVD is a movie pass to go see the second film.

I'm really excited to see it. They keep showing previews of it on the Disney Channel and now I'm really anxious!

They also showed a brief preview of Julie Andrews singing a duet with Raven.

i own and love the first one too!!!

When does it come out?

OOOOOOOOH i cant wait! i lived the first one and i know the second will be greay too!

It's set to be in theaters August 11th (from what I've heard, the preview I saw only said August :p ), which is a Wednesday.

thats a pretty sweet deal, i might have to score some points with my girlfriend and pick it up

I thought so too, and sometimes places like Target will put DVDs on sale the first week for $14.99-17.99.

is no one else upset that the second movie has NOTHING to do with the book series? you would think they could make the movie to follow up on the rest of the series... i mean.. in all the previews of movie 2 it talks about how she has never been in love. for those who read the books, uh, hello, what about michael?!

grar.

Isn't Michael in the commercials? There's definitely a dark haired guy with big sideburns. Who else could it be?

Maybe the love interest (which from the preview I saw in the theaters was NOT Michael)?

I think the reason the movies don't follow the books is that each book has so much in it (and really is only a short period of time)....I think all the books together are going to equal her freshman year of high school, whereas the movies has her (first) as a 16 year old, and (second) going to get married, so there is likely a large gap in the timing of the movies, which wouldn't go along with the books, anyways.

Do you know if opens everywhere on the 11th? My girlfriend said we're going opening night and i just assumed it was a friday.

Guess i'm just another man who can't effectively communicate with his significant other :p

Is this the continuation of the princess bride?

-Rudey

Thanks for heads up on this. I loved the first one.


No Rudey, this has nothing to do with the Princess Bride but that was a good movie too. That's another favorite of mine.

I LOVED the first one, and am definitely going to see the sequel :)

I just got back from seeing The Princess Diaries 2 and it is such a cute movie! It's definitely a little cheesy at times, but it's one of the better sequels to a movie that I've seen.

This is probably one of the funniest movie reviews I've ever read, especially the last couple of paragraphs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Aug10.html

And yeah, I'll probably end up seeing it anyway just because I'm a huge Julie Andrews fan. And I'm a princess! :D

You have to register to see the article...what did it say?

Whoops, sorry. Here's the text of the review.

'Princess Diaries 2': A Ball for the Dress-Up Set

By Stephen Hunter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 11, 2004; Page C01

All of us girls loved "Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement," and pay no attention to that fat guy over there with the snarl and the beard. What does he know? He's not a princess.

For here's the secret that both "Princess Diaries" and this sequel understand and that fatso couldn't figure out in a million years: All of us girls are princesses. Our daddies told us so, and these two movies merely validate that which we know to be true. The fat guy, with his stuff about how charmless it was, how slow and how long? Well, he doesn't know a thing. He doesn't speak princess. He speaks fat old man.

To be sure, "2" doesn't have quite the mythic splendor of the original. In that one, derived from the deservedly successful novel by Meg Cabot, a young American teenager, played by Anne Hathaway, discovered that she was the rightful heir to the throne of Genovia, a landlocked tiny kingdom in Disney World -- no, no, in Europe, silly. She had to struggle with her princesshood, helped by her magisterial grandmother, Mary Poppins. Oh, that's "princess humor"! It was Julie Andrews, the queen. And who could make a better queen than Miss Andrews? I think nobody!

The movie was brisk and smart, and all the performances were winning.

So now they've made No. 2, and Mr. Smarty-pants tells you there's not enough story in it to fill a shoebox, and that the business where the princess keeps tripping and falling or dropping things has gotten thin, particularly since three years have passed and Hathaway, as Princess Mia Thermopolis, is no longer gangly and gawky but a beautifully poised and polished young woman. He didn't laugh once during the whole movie, but we princesses were in princess heaven. Who are you going to believe, him or a whole theater of princesses?

And he seems to suggest, if I understand him right, that the director, Mr. Garry Marshall, has lost his zip. He believes the movie suffers from a definite zip shortage. Where has all the zip gone? he wails. Well, let me tell you, any movie that features Miss Julie Andrews mattress-surfing down a royal staircase while singing disco has got zip left over! It's got her onstage with a super-talented princess who is hip-hop dancing and Miss Andrews isn't missing a beat!

As for Hathaway, she is regal, human and has a smile that makes others seem like advertisements for tooth decay! Where others hath a way, Anne hath a smile that would melt a vault door and even the hearts of all save the most jaded, twisted, self-infatuated experts on, like, nothing!

I did hear some missed cute Robert Schwartzman, who ended up as Princess Mia's boyfriend at the end of the first movie, and that the substitution of hairdo model Chris Pine wasn't much help. Someone -- it may have been that fat guy -- even said that Pine has the charisma of a terra-cotta Chia Pet doing a Robert Wagner impression. And the plot, extremely mild, about palace intrigue in princess procedure that requires Mia to hook up with a prince or near-prince in 30 days? Oh, all right, maybe it's a little weak to sustain a movie that's two hours long -- yes, two hours. Please, it takes two hours to tell a princess's story. You can't shortchange a princess.

In all, the movie is for all of those who are princesses, and all of those who are lucky enough to be the parents of one, married to one or hanging out with one. So if your princess tells you to see the movie, shut up and get the car. And pay no attention to the fat guy.

Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement (115 minutes, at area theaters) is rated G.

I can't wait to go see this now! (But I have to wait until Sunday :()

I saw the movie last night with my two younger sisters. I really liked it and so did they! It was a funny movie that any and all princesses should go see! There were a few high school boys in my theater that were annoying as all get out and I'm sure we will all run into those people for this movie, but ignore it and enjoy! They are just jealous anyway!

Did they even touch on Michael? You can't not talk about what happened!

They do mention Michael in the first ten minutes of the movie.

I liked Michael too, but the new guy in the movie (who's hot, but would be way hotter w/ a haircut) is pretty likeable. If you watch the movie, they tell you what happened to Michael.

I liked this -- it was just about as good as the first one. There were actually quite a few funny moments.

It was bad. I adore movies like this, but it was bad.

Then plot wasn't very tightly constructed. They wrote for a younger target age. I thought the first one transcended that, but this one is geared for 11 year olds.

I liked Anne Hatherway's character in the first one. Hatheway is just fun to watch because she is so delightfully animated, but in this one I was actually starting not to like her.

I mean she trifles with other people's emotions, she is absolutely self centered. She almost comes across as a bit of a tramp or a trollop.

Even like the parade scene, a high school parade is more impressive than what they showed us.

I would blame the writer, but anything this bad takes a committee to mess up. Disney, Ha!

THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT / *1/2 (G)

August 11, 2004

BY ROGER EBERT








Mia Thermopolis: Anne Hathaway
Queen Clarisse: Julie Andrews
Viscount Mabrey: John Rhys-Davies
Joe: Hector Elizondo
Lilly Moscovitz: Heather Matarazzo
Lord Palimore: Tom Poston
Paolo: Larry Miller
Sir Nicholas: Chris Pine


Walt Disney Pictures presents a film directed by Garry Marshall. Written by Shonda Rhimes and Gina Wendkos, based on the novel by Meg Cabot. Running time: 120 minutes. Rated G.



"The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" offers the prudent critic with a choice. He can say what he really thinks about the movie, or he can play safe by writing that it's sure to be loved by lots of young girls. But I avoid saying that anything is sure to be loved by anybody.

In this case, I am not a young girl, nor have I ever been, and so how would I know if one would like it? Of course, that's exactly the objection I get in e-mails from young readers, who complain that no one like me can possibly like a movie like this. They are correct. I have spent a long time, starting at birth and continuing until this very moment, evolving into the kind of person who could not possibly like a movie like this, and I like to think the effort was not in vain.

So to girls who think they might like this movie, I say: Enjoy! Movies are for fun, among other things, and if you love "Princess Diaries 2," then I am happy for you, because I value the movies too much to want anyone to have a bad time at one.

But to Garry Marshall, the often-talented director of the original "Princess Diaries" as well as this sequel, I say: Did you deliberately assemble this movie from off-the-shelf parts or did it just happen that way? The film is like a homage to the cliches and obligatory stereotypes of its genre. For someone like Marshall, it must have been like playing the scales.

The beautiful Anne Hathaway, still only 22, stars as Princess Mia. You will remember that she was a typical American teenager whose mother raised her in a converted San Francisco firehouse, where she could slide down the pole every morning. Then a visit from Queen Clarisse of Genovia (Julie Andrews) revealed that she was, in fact, the queen's granddaughter, and next in line to the throne.

In Part 2, she is the beloved Princess Mia of Genovia, a kingdom the size of a movie set, which is apparently located somewhere in Europe and populated by citizens who speak American English, except for a few snaky types with British accents. This kingdom has two peculiarities: (1) The shops and homes all seem to be three-quarter-scale models of the sorts of structures an American Girl doll would occupy, and (2) A great many of the extras get a few extra frames, in order to look uncannily as if they might be personal friends of the director. So many prosperous men in their 60s, so well-barbered, groomed and dressed, so Southern California in their very bearing, are unlikely to be visiting Genovia for any other reason, since the kingdom doesn't seem to have a golf course.

There's no need for me to spoil the plot; as I was saying just the other day about "The Village," it spoils itself. If I were to describe the characters, you could instantly tell me what happens in the movie. Let's try that, as an experiment.

There is Princess Mia, who is given a deadline of one month to either marry or forfeit her rights to the throne. The evil Viscount Mabrey (John Rhys-Davies) wants to disqualify her because his nephew Sir Nicholas (Chris Pine) is next in line to the throne. Desperate for a husband and learning that Queen Clarisse was perfectly happy in an arranged marriage, Mia decides to marry for the love of her country.

A suitable bachelor is discovered: the nice Andrew Jacoby, Prince of Kensington (Callum Blue). Mia accepts his proposal, despite, as she writes in her diary on the movie's Web site, "He's everything a girl should want in a husband-to-be. It's ... just that ... something ... you know." Meanwhile, of course she hates the handsome young Sir Nicholas, who hangs around a lot and annoys her. Dear Diary: "Just look at him ... all sneaky and smug ... and ... cute."

OK now, given those clues, see if you can figure out who she ends up with. And for that matter, consider Joseph (Hector Elizondo), the chief of palace security. He has been in love with the widow Clarisse for years, and she knows it and is pleased. That provides us with a romance without closure that has persisted ever since the first movie, and if there is anything nature abhors more than a vacuum, it is a loving couple kept asunder, when they should be sundering.

Director Marshall puts his cast and plot through their paces with the speed and deliberation of Minnesota Fats clearing the table. He even provides a fountain for two characters to stand beside, so they can illustrate Gene Siskel's maxim that nobody in a comedy ever comes within 10 yards of water without falling in.

Yes, it's nice to see Julie Andrews looking great and performing a song, although the line "Give the queen a shout-out, and she'll sing" is one I doubt will ever be heard in Buckingham Palace. It is also rather original that at her slumber party, Mia and her friends don't get wasted at a private club, but engage in the jolly indoor sport of mattress surfing.



All that remains is for me to remind you that on Aug. 24, the DVD of "Ella Enchanted" will be released. A box-office flop that was wrongly overlooked earlier this year, it also stars Anne Hathaway. It's a wonderful, lighthearted fantasy based on Cinderella, and is sure to be loved by lots of young girls

I was upset ... but even the first movie didnt follow the books ... ie her father was alive in the books ... I have read all the books and love them and want to see this movie so bad

Wow, that's a bit harsh. I liked the movie, the writing wasn't that bad, though i agree w/ you that its obvious that Princess Mia has changed quite a bit. I had no problem w/ her though, afterall, she's been princess for some time now.

I loved Julie Andrews performance -- had no problem w/ the parade scene. But then again, I wasn't expecting an Oscar winning movie with this one either.

the movies don't follow the books b/c disney only licensed the use of characters, not the use of the story/plot.

Um, Roger Ebert, it's a DISNEY flick:rolleyes: Calm down.
I'm actually surprised it wasn't sappier (sp?). I thought it was cute. It had a lot going on in it. Mia grew up. You can't expect her to act like a 16 year old forever.

I do own the 1st one and when it becomes available, this one too. One thing I did like was that Mr. Marshall put his granddaughter in the film again. The one in the wheelchair. At the slumber party she is in the left corner when Raven (annoying as all hell) and Julie Andrews is singing "on stage". FYI Gary Marshall’s g-d was one of the autograph seekers in the first one.

Defiantly a pre-teen-chick-flick. I give it 4 stars****:p