Hollywood Product - The Prince & Me
Genre: Romantic comedy
Opens: Now playing
The pitch: When Denmark's Prince Edvard (Luke Mably) enrolls as a common exchange student at a Wisconsin party college, he falls for Paige (Julia Stiles), a no-nonsense pre-med student. When opposites attract — eventually — the plot turns from Prince and the Pauper to Cinderella, but will Paige put aside her rigid career plan to pursue a storybook romance?
Flesh factor: A TV commercial for a "Girls Gone Wild"-type video called "The Girls of Wisconsin" inspires Edvard to go to Paige's school, but he's the only one who ever takes his shirt off.
Fashion statements: When she first visits the Danish royal court, Paige wears jeans, so we don't forget she's just a regular American gal. The camera practically slobbers over the Harry Winston necklace and other jewelry Paige wears at the big ball. The scenes with Eddie's kingly family are lousy with crowns, sashes, medals and other royal frou-frou.
Money shots: Edvard wins a small-town lawn mower race while visiting Paige's farming family. In Copenhagen, Edvard sweeps Paige onto his steed and gallops through the streets.
Best line: "If you screw up my high scores, I'll blind you with my laser pointer," says Edvard's slobby, video-game-obsessed roommate. Only that line and some gags about Edvard's manservant (Ben Miller) posing as a college student hint at the comic flair director Martha Coolidge showed back in her Valley Girl and Real Genius days.
Hit single: Marc Cohn's cover of Tom Waits' "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" underscores a nice, quiet moment of Stiles dancing barefoot.
Product placement: Nearly every character uses the same model Samsung computer.
The bottom line: Stiles shows more charm than usual, and Paige's discomfort in the Danish court makes up a bit for the sluggish scenes in America. Films like The Princess Diaries fetishize the whole fantasy of becoming a princess, and The Prince & Me almost challenges it, but chickens out at the last minute. And wouldn't the title The Prince & I be better grammar? 
