Posted on: Friday, July 16, 2004

MOVIE REVIEW
Don't be duped: 'Cinderella Story' IS a weak film

By David Germain
Associated Press Movie Writer

A CINDERELLA STORY PG One-and-a-half Stars out of Four (Poor)

Reimagining the fairy-tale heroine as a Valley Girl, Hilary Duff's "A Cinderella Story" is about as appealing as rush hour on the Hollywood Freeway.

Drearily contrived and inanely predictable, this movie clearly was made under the assumption that female teens and tweeners will turn out for anything under the Duff brand.

The producers probably are right, but "A Cinderella Story" lowers the bar on the girl-power genre so far, it makes last week's "Sleepover" look almost insightful.

That the movie manages to provoke a chuckle or two has nothing to do with the tedious direction by Mark Rosman or the noodle-headed script by Leigh Dunlap.

Jennifer Coolidge as Duff's wicked stepmother is the movie's only strength, and by strength, we mean not quite rubbish. Coolidge's narcissism is so absurd, she wrings some scant laughs out of Dunlap's atrocious dialogue.

The rest of the cast, Duff included, are as shallow and affected as the characters in her TV series "Lizzie McGuire." Small wonder, considering small-screen specialist Rosman directed many of that show's episodes.

Duff plays Sam Montgomery, a saintly San Fernando Valley teen caught in the clutches of her stepmom, Fiona, and two stepsisters, obnoxiously played by Andrea Avery and Madeline Zima.

Banished to the attic of her beloved departed dad's house, Sam slaves away for Fiona at home and at her stepmother's tacky '50s-themed restaurant, earning her the nickname "Diner Girl" from the popular set at school.

Sam's only allies are her thespian pal Carter (Dan Byrd) and her diner co-workers, led by waitress Rhonda (Regina King), her figurative fairy godmother.

Rhonda dolls Sam up in a masked Cinderella costume for the Halloween homecoming dance, where she's arranged to meet her Prince Charming, whom she found in an online chat room for aspiring Princeton students.

After the man of her dreams turns out to be school super-jock Austin Ames (the super boring Chad Michael Murray), Sam flees the ball, leaving behind her cell phone instead of a glass slipper as the only clue to her identity.

You have to question the college-admissions process when Austin gets accepted to Princeton. This comes after he fails to fathom his sweetie's identity despite Sam's thin disguise (about as effective as Clark Kent's glasses), an exhaustive search for his Cinderella, and the fact that the two share some extended soul-mate face time after the ball.

Then again, this is a movie where boneheads such as Sam and Austin quote Tennyson. So we really are in fairy-tale land.

"A Cinderella Story," released by Warner Bros., is rated PG for mild language and innuendo. Running time: 95 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.