The Princess – Review
94 Minutes, Rated , Rated R
Written by Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton
Directed by Le-Van Kiet
**NOTE: this post will be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, enjoy this brief look at my thoughts. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
When a strong-willed princess refuses to wed the cruel sociopath, she is kidnapped and locked in a remote tower of her father’s castle. With her vindictive suitor intent on taking her father’s throne, the princess must save the kingdom.
Let’s try to string together a few general thoughts about The Princess, from 20th Century (owned by Disney) and being distributed exclusively on Hulu.
- The Princess was written by two men and directed by a man.
- Every single man in this movie is incompetent or a caricature of “toxic masculinity.”
- The only characters even remotely competent are the women, and every single one of those is hyper-competent.
- There is simply no fucking way Joey King’s Princess (at best played as an older teenage girl) can beat up multiple adult male soldiers, multiple times, with such (relative) ease.
It’s simply preposterous no matter how you slice it.
Coming in to this one, I was hoping for or expecting some sort of live-action version of really great Netflix animated series Disenchantment, but no.
Don’t get me wrong, Joey King’s performance is fine. She carries herself well and I generally enjoyed her character’s basic premise, but it’s inside a film that has little else going for it, and that includes Dominic Cooper as a potentially great villain, but even he’s wasted on a one-note bad guy.
And he is certainly 100% a complete douche-bag in this.
So if you’re looking for an over-the-top female-empowerment, guys-suck, fantasy film, I guess this will serve, but as an actual, good fantasy, this ain’t it.
But it very easily could have been.
The Princess is rated R (for violence and blood) and doesn’t bear the Disney banner, which explains why it’s releasing on the less “family-friendly” Hulu instead of Disney+.
The Princess is available exclusively on Hulu now and stars Joey King, Olga Kurylenko, Alex Reid, Ed Stoppard, Veronica Ngo, Dominic Cooper, and Katelyn Rose Downey.
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