The Princess Parent Guide

Ah, princess movies. Flowing tresses, frilly dresses, rainbows, unicorns, and love, sweet love, all wrapped up with a happily ever after ending.

Or not.

The Princess opens with the titular royal, clad in white satin, apparently asleep in a tower bedroom…but her hands are manacled and chained together and she is only feigning sleep. It turns out that the unnamed princess (Joey King) refused to wed the psychopathic Prince Julius (Dominic Cooper) and in revenge, he attacked the kingdom, took the royal family captive, and now insists on marrying the unwilling princess. What he doesn’t know is that the young woman has spent years training in combat and is determined to put up a fight.

And fight she does. In fact, this film is nothing more than 93 minutes of non-stop fight scenes, stitched together with brief flashbacks, even briefer exposition, and thin filaments of plot. The fight scenes are notable for only two things: their brutality and their mediocrity. I didn’t even try to keep a body count as people were killed by being stabbed (one through the eye), impaled, shot with arrows, thrown from heights, strangled, and even burned to death. The filmmakers clearly spent time dreaming up novel ways to kill people – although the whip with a switchblade tip fails to be convincing. (That said, there’s a certain karmic justice to the scene where a man is stabbed with his own horned helmet.)

Despite the non-stop carnage, the fight scenes are unimpressive. The choreography is monotonous and the fast cuts which try to disguise the scenes’ weaknesses fail to do so. John Wick this ain’t, and you might be surprised at how deadly dull all this slaughter can become. In fact, movies like this are the reason my favorite jeans are too tight: every half hour or so I have to bribe myself with junk food just to stay in my seat and keep watching. Salted caramel ice cream? Check. Salted caramel chocolate bar? Check. Taco chips? Check. It’s a good thing this movie doesn’t have a longer run time or my jeans would never fit again.

It’s obvious that The Princess is trying to make some very un-subtle social commentary. Julius insists that the kingdom needs to be led by a strong, aggressive leader; not the current king, who’s known for diplomacy. In fact, he condemns the king for respecting female agency (not forcing his daughter to marry) and being racially tolerant (allowing diverse immigration). The overarching message, however, is incandescent female rage over the denial of women’s autonomy. The princess was frustrated when her father wouldn’t make her the heir or allow her to train as a knight. Now, with the specter of a forced marriage hanging over her head and the constant threat of sexual violence from Julius’s troops, her determination to take control of her own fate and kill anyone who harms her is accompanied by blinding fury. While this might be a message that some women will sympathize with, I guarantee that the overwhelming majority of parents will not consider The Princess suitable for their teens. This is an angry, violent movie and the only interesting question it leaves behind is how on earth it wound up in Disney’s portfolio. It’s streaming on Hulu domestically, but in Canada and Latin America, it will be available on the Star section of Disney+ where it will co-exist uneasily with the darling damsels of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.