Review: The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

Royal Engagement is the prim and proper cousin to its comparatively anarchic predecessor.

The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Photo: Walt Disney Pictures

I don’t know what the the world did to deserve two Garry Marshall films in a period of five months back in 1999 (The Other Sister and Runaway Bride), but here we are again. Hot off the heels of Raising Helen comes The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement, a sequel to the 2001 surprise hit The Princess Diaries about a girl in a gay-less San Francisco who got to eat corn dogs with Julie Andrews and throw ice cream at Mandy Moore’s face.

Five years after she discovered that she was a princess, recent college grad Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) makes her way to the English-speaking country of Genovia, a fairy-tale neverland that seemingly consists of one castle and a Chocolat-style town somewhere in its periphery. With her grandmother (Andrews) on the brink of retirement, the newly-single Mia is poised to become queen, but also aiming for the throne is a sleazy Rob Lowe type, Sir Nicholas (Chris Pine), whose uncle’s (John Rhys-Davies) evil intentions are anticipated by sneaky music cues and the squawking crows over his country estate.

Much of the original film’s cast returns for a second go-around, except most—namely Heather Matarazzo’s nutty Lilly—have been lobotomized. Tiresomely plot-driven and unnecessarily drawn out, Royal Engagement is the prim and proper cousin to its comparatively anarchic predecessor. (Surely we could have done without Mia’s epic-length sleepover party, a shameless promotional sequence that allows an African princess played by Disney Channel darling Raven-Symoné to caterwaul with a mattress-surfing Andrews.)

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Hoary to the core, the film writes itself as soon as Mia goes sneaking around her future kingdom and discovers that the only way she can become queen is if she marries a man within 30 days. Mia seemingly ushers Genovia’s first full-fledged feminist movement, and the story dictates that women shouldn’t have to get married before they become queens. But because Mia’s “happily ever after” is Disney-certified, Royal Engagement suggests that independence means zilch if you don’t have a Tiger Beat cover model sexing you up. That said, the film does boast the most unintentionally funny moment of the year: When Pine’s horned-up Casanova grabs Hathaway and attempts to teach her how to hit a bullseye with her bow and arrow, he says, “Use your mouth as an anchor.” So that’s how you become a queen.

Score: 
 Cast: Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, Hector Elizondo, John Rhys-Davies, Chris Pine, Kathleen Marshall, Heather Matarazzo  Director: Garry Marshall  Screenwriter: Gina Wendkos  Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures  Running Time: 113 min  Rating: G  Year: 2004  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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