Monday, December 20, 2021

Princess Protection Program

I know I have mentioned this before in a couple of my reviews where I am not a fan of Selena Gomez. I’m sure she is a good person in real life, but I’m just not fond of her music. However, I do love Demi Lovato. The few songs I have heard of hers has been upbeat and catchy that you just want to get up and dance to. At the height of both of these young star’s popularity with their shows on Disney Channel (Wizards of Waverly Place and Sonny with a Chance, respectively) they both starred in the 2009 bore fest, “Princess Protection Program.

In the film, Lovato is Princess Rosalinda, next in line to the throne of Costa Luna. When her country is overthrown by an evil dictator, played by Johnny Ray Rodríguez, she is put into the Princess Protection Program, a secret organization funded by royal families to protect their daughters. She is saved by Joe Mason, played by Tom Verica, an agent for the PPP, who takes her into hiding in his own home. His home is in countryside Louisiana where he’s raising his teenage daughter, Carter, played by Gomez, by himself. You guessed it; the Masons is another one of those Disney families that don’t have a mother. This makes Carter a tomboy and an outcast in her school. However, she has one boy who has a crush on her, Ed (Nicholas Braun), but Carter fails to see how much Ed, her best friend, likes her because she has a crush for Donny (Robert Adamson), a rich snob.

Rosalinda stays at the Mason home and goes under disguise as Rosie, hoping to be seen as a normal teenager. Scott Malchus said in his review, “But, since she is royalty, she has been written as a stiff lipped, proper speaking aristocrat.” This is supposed to prepare jokes about the differences in classes, but you’ll be thinking how many times you have seen this before and done better. As the film continues, Rosie and Carter become close friends and go to the school dance together. Eventually Carter sees how great Ed is and how much of a jerk Donny is and Rosie is able to turn the tomboy Carter into a princess herself (which is done through a series of shopping montage).

Malchus admitted, “Honestly, I didn’t expect much. I’m no fan of Miss Gomez; I find her acting abilities limited. And Miss Lovato, while charming on her own sitcom, grates my nerves whenever she opens her mouth to sing. Still, I’m not who this movie is intended for, which is why I sat down with my daughter. As with any film or TV show I review for Dadnabbit, I do my best to get a reaction from the people these shows are aimed at. For the first time in as long as I can remember, my daughter and I agreed on how bad a movie was. It wasn’t just the acting, or the writing that left plot holes as large as Demi Lovato’s smile. Not, it was that the whole package felt like it was thrown together for the sole purpose of capitalizing on the growing fame of these two young stars and their real-life friendship. Worse, the movie was boring, the worst crime you can commit with a 10-year-old girl. When your daughter starts asking questions about the logic of a movie or catching continuity errors, people, you screwed up.”

Is there any reason to rush out and buy this DVD for children? No. Disney will constantly be playing this movie for years and the bonus music video has already been playing on the Disney Channel. Malchus ended his review by suggesting, “if you really want a decent DVD is to buy the Hatching Pete/ Dadnapped release that came out earlier this year.”

Like I have already stated, this movie is not good. I guess you can say it’s because I’m not in the age group, which I have noticed for a lot of Disney Channel Original Movies, but this one was one of the lower ones on my list. I just didn’t see the point in making this instead of cashing in on the princess craze that Disney has started at the beginning. If you have little kids who enjoy princess movies and are a fan of these two lead singers, then they can see it, but for everyone else, stay “far” away from it.

Tomorrow I will review another movie based on a popular Disney Channel show that I have mentioned before a few times in “Disney Month 2021.”

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