User reviews

You may look at the preview and think, "Great, they just basically ruined the ending for me." which is what I though when I saw it. However, I took a chance renting it, because I figured it would be an entertaining way to pass the time. I was right. I not only found it entertaining, but by the end, as corny is it may sound for a film like this, it did leave me guessing a little as to what would happen.

Although I don't usually care for Julia Stiles, I found her to be delightful in this piece, and the right person to play the part. The role of the handsome Scandanavian Prince, was also correctly casted, and was a heartthrob a minute. The two actors worked very well together, and I very much enjoyed the film, finding it sweet, romantic and just enough of light and heavy to balance it out nicely.

Ovearll it's a film that certainly wouldn't have been nominated for any big awards, but it's cute, and in the end a pretty predictable film. I recommend it to the ones out there who like the Cinderella-ish stories. It's kind of like that.

This film is a rather light and enjoyable trifle and it does have a very fine performance from Julia Stiles, some very pretty scenery (Prague standing in for Copenhagen), and Miranda Richardson (as the Prince's mom).

There is a certain irony to the whole film given that the real Crown Prince of Denmark, HKH Kronprins Frederik, married a commoner from a far flung place...in fact my home country Australia in 2004. (Which has resulted in every Australian becoming an expert on Danish royalty!)

But back to the film ...the girl meets boy, girl hates boy, boy falls for girl, girl falls for boy, is as old a story as there is but the film does manage to tell its story with some refreshing touches. Paige's girlfriends are a great collection and the the Prince's valet is very funny.

By no means a great film but enjoyable way to waste two hours.

But just don't expect to learn anything about modern monarchy in Denmark!!!

I enjoyed this movie, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a Dane myself. I found myself smiling on a few occasions, which involved Danish actors or mentions of other Danish things.

But there's many things that's not correct, obviously. Danish princes are practically always called Christian or Frederik, we currently don't have a king but a queen, we speak Danish and our newspapers are also in Danish, and monarchs are not allowed to be involved in politics. I'm sure there is more, but I can't remember.

But it's a cute story, predictable, but it's a romantic comedy, and those are predictable.

See it, enjoy it, but don't take it too literally.

How many romantic films exist where the principal couple has not experienced their first kiss until one hour into the story? "The Prince & Me" is one rare example of such a film, and I admired the careful development of the main relationship, as performed by the likable Julia Stiles and Luke Mably.

Above all, I admired the focus on courtship, a concept that is arguably a dying breed in our culture today. In fact, I cannot recall a film where there was so little emphasis on sex and so many carefully developed scenes where we see emotional chemistry building between the main characters, Paige Morgan, a young pre-med student in Wisconsin, and the Danish prince Edward who calls himself Eddie.

"The Prince & Me" brings back the old-style Hollywood romances. In fact, I kept thinking of the wonderful picture "The Swan" featuring the luminous Grace Kelly, the dour Alec Guinness, and the dashing Louis Jourdan. Although "The Prince & Me" may not merit the status of a classic romance like "The Swan," it was nonetheless a breath of film-going fresh air among so many cynical films dealing with contemporary relationships. There was a nice touch with the pacing of the film and the close-ups provided by director Martha Coolidge. The scenes shot in Denmark were splendid and added an aura of magic to the main love relationship.

According to her IMDb biography, Julia Stiles has been an English major at Columbia in addition to juggling an impressive acting career. The scenes in "The Prince & Me" set at the University of Wisconsin, Manitowac provided a convincing portrayal of academic life, especially the coaching session in Shakespeare. The realism in the routine activities at college helped to make the story as a whole convincing and evoked the feeling that a relationship like that of Paige and Eddie might really exist.

"The Prince & Me" is likely to be skewered by critics for being entirely predictable. Meet Paige. Pre-med student who has ambitions of seeing the world with Doctors Without Borders. Meet Edvard. Danish crown prince who wants to go to America, Wisconsin particularly, because he sees one of those "Girls of Wisconsin" videos. He enrolls at Paige's school as an exchange student named "Eddie". He's incognito because he wants to avoid the papparazzi. Do you think he'll get along with Paige at first? Think they'll fall for each other? Think the fairytale romance won't blossom? If you doubt any of this, then you A) have been living under a rock B) have never seen a romantic comedy in your life. "The Prince & Me", which I was dragged off to see by my girlfriend, *is* that predictable. There's hardly a plot twist in sight. Everything happens according to the book. Girl meets prince in disguise. Girl falls for prince. Prince reveals identity. Girl gets mad. Girl realizes she loves prince. Goes off to neverland to marry prince. Etc., etc.

But I figured if I could stay awake through this movie (and I did) it had to have some merit. And it does.

The "Danish" royal family in this film is a thinly-veiled parody of the British royals. The old queen with the aversion to her kin marrying commoners, the playboy prince...you get the point. This part of the film adds a touch of realism to the proceedings. I kind of liked that. I've seen royalty portrayed in other movies that I've been forced to watch (eg. King Ralph, Princess Diaries) and they couldn't have been more off the mark.

There's some genuinely amusing (but not laugh-out loud) moments in the film too.

I won't spoil them for you here. But if you're a guy, and your girlfriend is begging you to see this, you might want to give it a chance.

7/10

A nice easy watch. Very predictable but enjoyable.

Almost 20 years old, and i couldn't help but laugh at the uncanny similarities between what's going on in the film and currently with Meghan Markle. Perhaps she should have watched this film, and seen that joining a European royal family isn't without difficulties. Harry said in his book Meghan was upset as she was a hugger, the American in this film was a hugger and it was pulled up in a jokey context.

Would I watch again? No. Am I glad I gave it a go? Yes. Julia Stiles is lovely and loved all her films from back in the day, not sure how I've never seen this before.

The fact that I'm a Dane made my view towards this movie very critical. The way Denmark and Danes are portrayed don't have any part of reality in it, and the view on Europeans seems shallow, simple and very caricature-like. I hope that one day even teen-movies from U.S.A. can be a little sophisticated and subtle.

I really like Julia Stiles as an actress and I admire her talent but I simply doesn't get why she's able to participate in such a simplified film. The old-fashioned love story is kind of great, but when you have some knowledge of how Danish society actually functions you can't really appreciate this movie as you're supposed to.

Facts about Denmark: The Royal Family doesn't take part in politics and none of the members are allowed to vote at elections. The actual Danish Crown Prince, Frederik 10th, has been studying Political Science at Harvard University (92-93) without any undercover servant/nanny, can you believe that!(just kidding)

To sum up the plot itself is okay, but the superficial way of portraying Europeans is a bad habit a lot of Americans has, sorry but true. A whole lot of people seem to think that Denmark is the capital of Sweden. My point is that Europe contains several different cultures and the countries are actually easy to separate from one another.

The prince and me was a pretty typical film, with a worn out plot. Not to mention an annoying view on Danes. Some of the things that bothered me on what I mentioned above, was the names in particular. Edward, Rosalind, Arabella...they could at the least have tried giving the names a Danish feel. And there is the fact that Denmark does NOT have a king, we have a queen! The Queens husband is not called a king, but a prince, because he married into the royal family, and a king will always range higher then a queen. Sorry, that was besides the point......Anyway this movie does have some quite funny moments that makes it worth watching, and I kinda liked the scene at the table with Edward telling Paige's brothers a few things about Denmark. Another thing that made me smile, was that they hadn't abandoned the Danish language completely, but had inserted some speech with it. 4.5/10 stars.

Roger Ebert actually gave "The Prince and Me" zero stars which seems a little harsh, as it does have a few universally enjoyable scenes and decent performances from almost the entire cast. Unfortunately they are saddled with a somewhat weak and completely predictable screenplay, and a premise that has been used and reused.

Ebert compares it unfavorably with "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton" where the same type of small town girl wins a date with a big Hollywood star, who then falls in love with her freshness and sincerity. She begins to struggle with the tedious real-life demands of what she thought would be a glamorous life. Others compare it to 1954's "The Student Prince" and its 1997 television remake, although not unfavorably as both productions are considered barely competent. I think it is most like "Coming to America", although it does not capture the humor and social commentary of that film. I'm sure that the producers of "The Prince and Me" drew considerable inspiration from the box office popularity of "Coming to America. Unfortunately they failed to follow its example and create a fictional monarchy, choosing instead to subject Denmark to the indignity of this silly story.

The story obviously satisfies some basic yearning in the human psyche, or at least the teenage female psyche. The most interesting thing about "The Prince and Me" is the inspired way they successfully expanded their target audience to include pre-teen girls. By casting Eliza Bennett (with apologies to Jane Austen) as the Prince's adoring little sister, Princess Arabella, they created a nice fantasy for this younger demographic. To her credit, Eliza brings a lot of much needed charm to the production.

The physical casting of the two leads is very good. Julia Stiles does not exude a lot of sensuality but fits the role of a brainy American college student, with ambitions to become a doctor. That Stiles is convincing as a smart and serious young woman helps convince us when the Queen (Miranda Richardson) is eventually won over by her prospective daughter-in- law. Their changing relationship is the one plot element that you don't entirely see coming. And Luke Mably fits Americas idea of a young prince, looking much like those Windsor boys. While the pairings of Prince and little sister and of Queen and future Queen work exceptionally well, the Stiles-Mably relationship has no chemistry and seems terribly forced. So one just has to go with it and enjoy the other elements of the film.

Once the story moves to Copenhagen it gets better as they do a good job of presenting the entire experience from the point of view of Paige Morgan (Stiles). With this it actually improves on "Coming to America" and becomes much more like "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton".

This is one of those films where you can see every single plot development from a million miles away. Although that will make very little difference to it's target audience, others will find it makes much of the film a yawn-fest.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Martha Coolidge's "The Prince & Me" shows us a director as one of the most talented women in the business. Ms. Coolidge is in the right track presenting this story about the romance of a young American girl with a Danish prince that has all the makings of a crowd pleaser. Not having seen it when it was released commercially, we caught up with it on cable. While this is a story targeted for a certain age group, people of all ages will probably enjoy this delightful comedy.

The casting of Julia Stiles as Paige Morgan, the Wisconsin co-ed that meets a young prince at the university, proves its best asset. This young actress is a welcome presence no matter the project. She radiates such warmth and sunniness that it's hard not to fall in love with her by the end of the picture. She proves to be irresistible, even for us, the casual viewer.

Although the film follows a formula, which has been seen before, it is never obnoxious, or makes us lose interest. Luke Mably, plays the young prince Edward of Denmark with easy charm. He gets to know reality first hand when he accompanies Paige to the farm where she has lived all her life. Ben Miller, is Soren, the prince's companion who is always there for him.

The film is a delightful way to spend a couple of hours.

In this teen romance, a Wisconsin student studying to be a doctor (Stiles) falls in love with the crown prince of Denmark (Luke Mably), putting her career plans into question and forcing her to decide between being a doctor and having a life as royalty.

I didn't have any desire to see this but my girlfriend wanted to watch it so we did. I thought it was going to at least be tolerable because of two reasons. First, Julia Stiles is actually a decent actress. The other reason is because of Martha Coolidge. She has made some pretty entertaining films in the past. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good. The story is stale and predictable. There are no surprises and it was kind of pointless to recycle such an old story and do nothing new with it. The film's biggest problem is the running time. 111 minutes isn't really that long but for a film like this it is. It could have been short and painless like most films from the same genre but instead it was long and dull.

For some reason Martha Coolidge wanted to run scenes longer than they needed to be. The film takes forever to get to obvious places and a lot of it could have been edited. The acting is surprisingly bland. The characters are likable just not very interesting. Julia Stiles disappointed me with her performance. She just wasn't believable enough and I don't think she's pretty enough to really pull off the role. Luke Malby gives an okay performance, nothing special. Unlike the best romantic comedies I have seen, the supporting cast is very weak. Usually if the leads are weak then the supporting cast can make up for it. If anything, they are actually weaker then the two lead

The film wasn't completely bad though. There were a few funny moments and the romance did work sometimes. The film was also pretty harmless so there was nothing to really hate. Compared to recent chick flicks, The Prince and Me is better than Chasing Liberty but not as good as Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. The film was just too average and generic to truly stand out. In the end, unless you're a fan of Julia Stiles you should probably just skip this forgettable chick flick. Rating 5/10

I've been reading the comments from everyone on the movie. I just wanted to say a couple of things. First off, if one turns off their analytical side and simply watch the movie, they might be surprised.

Every female, regardless of age, secretly wants to be loved like the classic 'princess' stories. It's not so much about a princess as it is about the real love between two people.

These kinds of stories still exist simply because we yearn for them, even if it is buried deep inside us.

The most important part of the movie is not location, government or royalty, it is the journey these two 'people' take after meeting. The setting for each before meeting sets up the movie and introduces them, flaws and all to us.

this is simply a love story that transcends time and age. Watch it with emotion instead of analyzing it.

I decided to write a review for this movie because it appears that people still feel the need to rip on it to this very day. I considered giving The Prince & Me a 10 star rating to offset the harsh 1 star ratings, but I ultimately chose not to because I want to paint a fair picture of this movie. To address the predictability issue- yes, it's predictable. There is a second breakup that is actually not typical for romance movies and where we leave their relationship is refreshing and somewhat unique.

In terms of the Denmark inaccuracies, frustrating though they may be, most of them are not a terribly big deal. The biggest gaffe is probably the royals being politically active in a way that suggests an unrealistic amount of power. I also noticed people commenting on the names and, outside of Edvard, I do believe that the royal family's names are not Danish.

The "Girls Gone Wild" thing and the way it is paid off only serves to make Edvard an ignorant fool and I wish they hadn't gone there.

All that being said, this is a rom-com from 2004 and that should tell you what to expect. The acting is good, the chemistry is good, and there are some funny moments. It's just a fun time with an earnest and important message.

This movie was cute, but I felt like it could've been a little shorter. Other than that, it is like one of my dreams! Wouldn't it just be great to find a random prince, get married, and become rich? Lol. Good movie but I don't know how I'd feel about watching the sequels or any of that.

I am very honored; that an American producer would make a film about the actual fairy tale that took place in Denmark that year (it actual took place over a few years). But I don't think the writer/producers made their homework of what in fact Denmark is all about. Therefore I have made a list with a few of these mistakes: 1) I am aware of that it might not be suitable to use the actual names of the present royal Danish family, but I think you should know that the queen's name is Queen Margrethe 2., her husband: Prince Henrik, and the two sons: Crown Prince Frederik an Prince Joachim. Further more, the regent of Denmark is Queen Margrethe 2. and not a king. 2) In the beginning of the film, the Crown Prince is shown as a playboy. The Danish Crown Prince is certainly not, or has ever been, a playboy. The Danish Crown Prince is a gentleman and has always been very aware of his responsibility. He has, among other things, graduated from Harvard and has been in a corps in Denmark similar to the US Navy Seals. 3) In the film Crown Prince Edward and Paige get engaged really fast, probably because this is a film and there isn't much time. But in real life the Danish Crown Prince and the Australian ms. Mary Donaldson (now a princess) knew each other for about 3 years before they got engaged, which is much more likely when such a big decision is made; and of course, the future princess had to learn Danish and how to be a princess first. 4) There is also a problem with the Danish royal family's place in the Danish society. The royal family of Denmark must NOT meddle in politics. The only thing the Danish regent does, is to sign the laws. She can refuse to do so, but I don't think she would be a regent much longer if she did.

These were a few corrections to the film, and there is more where it comes from. Despite these, I think it was a really good film, although the true fairy tale is much better. But, of course, if a real fairy tale shouldn't take place in Hans Christian Andersen's homeland, where should it?

To conclude shortly: Once upon a time there was a Danish prince called Frederik. Frederik was very lonely, because he couldn't find the right girl to stand by his side as the future queen of Denmark. In spite of this he fulfilled the duties a Crown Prince had, and became well educated, traveled across the ice cap on a dog sleigh and became a member of the Danish Frogman Corps (just like the US Navy Seals), he became a god example and a Crown Prince, Denmark could be proud of. The only problem was: he hadn't found the right woman yet. Well, the Danish prince was very into sports, so he went to the Olympics in Australia in the year 2000. One evening he and a friend went to a little bar, to get a beer. Here he met an incredible woman called Mary Donaldson, only she didn't know that he was someone special. She first found out later, when the two of them already had fallen deeply in love. See this was a true fairy tale. (I just borrowed a few words from H. C. Andersen)

The story doesn't end here. But the rest, you can find out for yourself. ;-)

At college Paige meets Eddie, a fellow student from Denmark, whom she first dislikes but later accepts, likes, and loves; he proves to be Crown Prince Edvard. Paige follows him to Copenhagen, and he follows her back to school with a plan.

Do you remember that moment in time when Julia Stiles was something of an "it" girl? I mean, you know "10 Things I Hate About You" is a modern classic. And I remember liking "Wicked". But then I think people started figuring out she sort of has only one personality and is not really a serious actress. And frankly, she looks sort of weird. Beyond the Bourne movies and a strange miscasting in "The Omen", she faded away.

I love that this film takes place in Madison and they even have the rathskeller, yet it was not filmed at all in Madison. Seems like it would have been nice to get some real exterior shots of the Madison campus rather than fat guys eating chips. If you know that Madison has a rathskeller, you have probably been there.

Sorry - this did very little for me. As a fan of this genre I am well aware of what to expect in terms of plot and though sometimes a change in this routine is interesting, I for one am happy that I know more or less exactly the 'win, lose, win' scenario. If I am disappointed it is often in the lack of opportunity to follow the leads once they are consolidated as a pair. In that respect this movie fails miserably. You are taken along a scarcely credible plot (OK that's often fine) and then just when emotionally you are looking for a little bit of 'depth' to allow you to blend with the movie it literally drops you without warning. It's as though they suddenly realised they needed to have an ending and then rushed it and in doing so they wasted the opportunity to give the movie a heart. Very rare for me to be moved to comment these days and even rarer for comments to be so negative, I suppose you could say that at least this very very lightweight effort achieved that.