The Prince & Me

A pre-med college student (Julia Stiles) locks horns with a new guy on campus (Luke Mably). In time, their initial conflict blossoms into love, and then she is dismayed to learn that he’s really a prince in disguise. (Gee whiz, what a novel plot!) In one of those baffling Hollywood mysteries, it took four writers (Mark Amin, Katherine Fugate, Jack Amiel and Michael Begler) to concoct the stew of moth-eaten clichés and contrivances in the script. Director Martha Coolidge leans heavily on the charms of her two stars, but they’re mismatched; Stiles is likeable and quirky, while Mably is likeable but bland. The movie is wispy and drawn out—it stretches its nonexistent story out into no fewer than three different endings, all of them unsatisfying—and it is, on balance, excruciatingly predictable.