“The Princess”It opens with a mix of fairy tales. The titular royal (Joey King), “The Kissing Booth”) lies unconscious in an ornate dress, her wavy locks strewn across the pillow. Her bed is surrounded with flowers. However, unlike Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, she wakes up by herself and beats two brutish guards. Even though the opening promises some sort of subversive message, there is only one brave question in this film: “What if a princess could also kick your ass?”
The shrug-worthy answer – “Then she would probably kick some ass, I guess” – makes for the bulk of this facile, plotless movie.
Ben Lustig (first-time screenwriter) Jake Thornton’s sparse script goes as follows: The princess awakes in a tower. Julius, an evil nobleman, has kidnapped the princess (Dominic Cooper doing his best Karl Urban impression). In order to escape the clutches of Julius and save her family, the princess must slaughter scores upon scores of knaves.
Joey King does indeed fall many villains and there’s some amazing stunt work in this mix of CGI and confusing choreography. But there’s basically nothing to see here – unless, of course, you find it in any way novel to see a feminine woman head up an action movie.
For those of us who haven’t been comatose since 1980, girl fighters are nothing new. There were a total of 57 girl fighters in the past year. “Black Widow,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,”The re-release “Justice League,”And “Army of the Dead.”This idea that it makes for meaningful female representation in any way is laughable. Yes, women can be both athletic and women. It is more offensive than progressive that Hollywood feels the need to show this by dressing its female fighters in coiffed hair, makeup, or impractical outfits.
Yet, “The Princess”It does not only feature a female fighter as its protagonist. The plot is almost entirely built around the fact that she can fight, and that she is a girl. King’s princess grew up secretly learning to fight from her father’s advisor, Linh (Veronica Ngo, “The Old Guard”She is a soldier and hopes to make a difference. Julius’ invasion gives her that chance. We know nothing more about her. The character doesn’t even have a name. She is only mentioned in the credits. “The Princess.”
The protagonist is made out of cardboard and acts accordingly. Although being a fighter gives her agency, she seems to have everything happen to her. She does her best with humor and action-hero quips to meet them. In a series of unending confrontations, as the princess makes her way down the tower, Julius’ unbathed minions say sexist things, and the princess pauses to fire back with a witty retort before killing them. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s like watching someone play a mediocre video game for an hour and a half.
The film almost delights in its protagonist’s misery, perhaps most aptly displayed by her masochistic costuming. The film insists on its heroine being in a skirt. The film’s heroine starts in a cumbersome wedding gown. Instead of simply changing into pants, which she has many opportunities to do, she is forced to tear apart and modify the ridiculous garment. “The Princess” would play much better as a satire about a young woman stuck in an endless loop of victimhood, like Natasha Kermani’s horror gem “Lucky.”
Unfortunately, the film offers little relief for either the princess or the audience as she repeatedly displays her combat skills. And because the film starts in the middle of Julius’ coup, we’re left to glean backstory from flashbacks and on-the-nose expository dialogue. “The Princess”Yet, it manages to be both incredibly obvious and poorly written. Linh is the only person we learn about, but the platitudes Linh gives the princess could have easily been written by an AI that has read the action-movie scripts for the past ten years. She constantly reminds the princess that her real power doesn’t come from her fists but from her heart.
Furthermore, “The Princess”This isn’t a good-looking or well-shot enough for campy fun. It is set in a CGI giant that produces many ugly shots. Every frame is covered in muddy brown. Director Le-Van Kiet struggles to keep up with each fight, leading to several blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em moments. It’s certainly not rare for a big production to include CGI or whiplash-inducing fight scenes, but plenty of movies have made the most of it. “Stardust,” Matthew Vaughn’s fantasy action film from 2007, smartly handled both.
It’s difficult to imagine a bleaker encapsulation of modern gender politics, where it often seems that women’s access to power is more important than their access to basic human rights. The princess’ heroic efforts do eventually make an impact on the kingdom, but only because she had the brute force necessary to murder innumerable one-dimensional men. She represents nothing new or progressive; she’s just a male fantasy, forever trapped in that godforsaken dress.
“The Princess”Hulu premieres July 1