A socially awkward but very bright 15-year-old girl being raised by a single mom discovers that she is the princess of a small European country because of the recent death of her long-absent father, who, unknown to her, was the crown prince of Genovia. She must make a choice between continuing the life of a San Francisco teen or stepping up to the throne.
Notions of responsibility, surrogacy, rites of passage and the value of friendship are gone through, but the highlighting of modern tropes merely serves to emphasise the film's conventionality.
– Derek Adams,
Time Out,
9 Feb 2006
rotten:
Screenwriter Gina Wendkos, working from Meg Cabot's novel, resorts to monotonous movie cliches: almost uniformly cruel classmates and a callous, cacophonous mob of media jackals.
– Bruce Westbrook,
Houston Chronicle,
21 Jul 2005
fresh:
A modest, enjoyable fairy tale that easily outcharms its animated stablemates of the past decade.