The Prince And Me

The Prince & Me 2 - The Royal Wedding
$9.98
This sequel isn't as good as The Prince and Me. Rather than keeping the winning acting of Julia Stiles, this movie replaces her with Kim Heskin, who has neither looks nor acting ability to recommend her. Where Julia Stiles played the character of Morgan Paige with grace and dignity, Heskin seems like a whinny teen. Even though Malby stayed in the sequel, he seems a much smaller man. In The Prince and Me Malby's King Edvard acted like a true king and took command, holding a cabinet meeting. In The Prince & Me 2 - The Royal Wedding, Malby's king is indistinguishable from any pathetic teen guy.

The only thing that saves The Prince & Me 2 - The Royal Wedding is the plot. It's entertaining enough to smooth over the deteriorating acting. It focuses on a plot by a corrupt uncle to sabotage Paige and Edvard's marriage by raising a legal prohibition against a non-Scandanavian queen. Princess Kirsten, Paige's competition for Edvard's heart, is a breath of fresh air, bringing grace and cunning to the film. Not only is she much better looking than Paige, but she never overacts - until the grand finale.

The Prince & Me 2: The Royal Wedding [Blu-ray]
$19.98
This sequel isn't as good as The Prince and Me. Rather than keeping the winning acting of Julia Stiles, this movie replaces her with Kim Heskin, who has neither looks nor acting ability to recommend her. Where Julia Stiles played the character of Morgan Paige with grace and dignity, Heskin seems like a whinny teen. Even though Malby stayed in the sequel, he seems a much smaller man. In The Prince and Me Malby's King Edvard acted like a true king and took command, holding a cabinet meeting. In The Prince & Me 2 - The Royal Wedding, Malby's king is indistinguishable from any pathetic teen guy.

The only thing that saves The Prince & Me 2 - The Royal Wedding is the plot. It's entertaining enough to smooth over the deteriorating acting. It focuses on a plot by a corrupt uncle to sabotage Paige and Edvard's marriage by raising a legal prohibition against a non-Scandanavian queen. Princess Kirsten, Paige's competition for Edvard's heart, is a breath of fresh air, bringing grace and cunning to the film. Not only is she much better looking than Paige, but she never overacts - until the grand finale.

The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon [Blu-ray]
$19.98
As one might expect from the series, this movie is a bit corny and the acting isn't great. It seems like soap opera acting, with typecast characters. Neither the king nor the queen exude the charisma one would expect from royalty. Much of the storyline is simply unbelievable (does anybody think the "evil" prime minister would really whip out a sword and attack the king?). Furthermore, the film looks like it was made on a budget - rather than showing HD-quality scenes of wildlife with the actors, the movie appears to use older footage of wildlife from documentaries that was simply spliced into the movie (at some points, the lighting and tone of the snow in the wildlife shots are slightly different than the rest of the scenes).

The saving grace for this movie is that it is not entirely predictable and the plot takes some twists and turns (some for the worse). I also appreciated that the king and queen were depicted as having a relatively mature relationship - not dramatically breaking up for a year over a silly miscommunication, as seems so prevalent in romantic comedies (for example, "Baby on Board"). It will probably be entertaining enough for younger kids, but parents and older children will probably be bored.

The Prince & Me / Sabrina / I.Q. (Triple Feature)
$24.99
PRINCE & ME: Paige, a pre-med student from Wisconsin, is on the fast track toward her lifelong goals. Edward, the Crown Prince of Denmark, is trying to escape a life he never chose. Needing an escape from his royal life, Edward treks to Wisconsin and poses as "Eddie," a college student. Now they've fallen in love and Edward is in line to become King. Paige has to choose between two dreams -- becoming a princess or the doctor she's always wanted to be. SABRINA: A remake of a 1954 Billy Wilder romance, this updated version of the play Sabrina Fair was directed by Sydney Pollack. Julia Ormond stars as Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of a kindly chauffeur (John Wood) at the Long Island estate of the upper crust Larrabee family. Sabrina has grown up enchanted from afar with the Larrabees' sparkling world of privilege and wealth, but she's especially enamored of younger Larrabee brother David (Greg Kinnear), a charming womanizer. After the once plain Sabrina returns from a sojourn in Paris transformed into a remarkably poised and attractive young woman, she at long last catches David's eye. In a calculated effort to manipulate David away from her and into a more financially advantageous marriage, older brother Linus (Harrison Ford) pretends to woo Sabrina himself, but finds himself unintentionally falling in love. IQ: Legendary scientist Albert Einstein (played here by Walter Matthau) takes a break from theoretical physics to try to set up his intellectual niece with a handsome auto mechanic in this romantic comedy. The movie's central conceit is that Einstein's brilliance extends to matters of the heart, allowing him to immediately sense that Ed Walters (Tim Robbins), a bright, lower-class mechanic obsessed with Popular Science Magazine, would be perfect for his niece Catherine (Meg Ryan). Unfortunately, Catherine is already engaged to a stiff Princeton man. In order to defeat Catherine's resistance, Uncle Albert decides to help Ed pretend to be a revolutionary scientist, a charade that inevitably leads to much farcical confusion. Einstein's scientist pals are portrayed as a Greek chorus of Catskills-style kibitzers, featuring such notable perfomers as Lou Jacobi as Kurt Godel and director Gene Saks as Boris Podolsky.