The idea of subverting story tropes in order to create something new and compelling isn't exactly novel, but it's also not always a recipe for failure. Putting a new spin on the idea of a princess who needs to be rescued and instead having her do her own rescuing is an idea that might have worked brilliantly. Unfortunately, all that's left is The Princess, a flat, empty actioner that's short on everything, from character development to story to even the action it ostensibly promises.
This is not a movie that should be taken seriously by anyone at any time. It manages to get almost everything wrong in its execution, and it almost seems to revel in its laziness. There may have been a better movie hiding in the dregs of this script, but there was no attempt to try and find it.
Joey King, who has turned in great performances before (particularly in The Act), plays the unnamed heroine of the story, a princess who is more than she appears. Far from being a damsel in distress, this princess can actually kick some butt (much to the chagrin of her father, the unnamed King). The titular royal is being held captive before being forced to marry a stock villain (played by Dominic Cooper, who is entirely wasted in this movie). Her mission is clear, escape the tower where she is being held captive, kill her suitor, and free her kingdom.
Don't go looking for anything deeper than that. The Princess delivers exactly what it promises without any attempt to dig any deeper. Not that there's much to dig into here: the heroes are good and the villains are bad, like cartoonishly bad. Cooper's villain, Julius, wants to force the princess to marry him because he wants the kingdom. Julius is joined by Moira, his main henchwoman played by Olga Kurylenko, who may have got to chew some scenery, but was a much more impactful villain in Black Widow. These two are so transparently bad that if they had mustaches, they would have been twisted right off their faces.
King's princess doesn't fare much better. She barely has any lines throughout the entire movie, and her character arc may as well just be a flat line. From the first minute she is onscreen to the final scene, the princess never changes and never learns anything. There's a small beat in the movie's final moments that seems to try and solve this problem, but it's hasty, messy, and has absolutely zero depth. There's some stock motivation there about how women aren't supposed to learn to fight and that the King will not have his daughter being a warrior, but it's so rudimentary that it might as well have just not been there at all.
All of the character issues are just one problematic part of a script that very obviously needed a lot more work. It often feels like much of what's happening is just first draft filler, designed to be reworked into something that is actually a real story. In fact, the movie does away with a first act entirely, relegating all of its setup, including its inciting incident to clumsily inserted flashbacks. One would imagine that this was by design, something to make the movie feel more streamlined. However, the opposite effect is achieved.
The movie ends up being a slog, mostly just moving from point A to point B with no imagination whatsoever. The princess will get herself into a situation where she has to fight, she fights, she moves on. Again, the only element breaking any of this up is the occasional flashback, but a number of these feel like they're just hitting the same beat, which begs the question of why they need to be used at all. They could have been hastily cobbled together into a first act instead of sprinkled throughout the rest of the movie.
The story is also just incoherent in many respects. Julius makes it clear early on that he can't just conquer it because then it wouldn't be legitimate. Why is it more "legitimate" to raid the castle, hold the king and queen hostage, and force someone into marriage? That's never really explained, but the audience is supposed to just go along with it (in another logical leap, after trying to kill the princess for half the movie, one of the many soldiers yells "don't kill her! We need her alive," right before immediately going back to trying to kill her).
Some of these problems, not all but some, might have been solved if the action in the movie was consistently entertaining. Alas, The Princess can't even manage to get its main draw right. Most of King's fight scenes are competently executed, and it's clear that she fits the bill as an emerging action star (it'll be fun to see her complete this evolution in this summer's Bullet Train), but in a movie that has so little to offer besides its action, these setpieces just don't go far enough. Despite John Wick creator Derek Kolstad serving as one of the movie's producers, there's no style, no substance, and very little impact in these fight scenes. The movie is rated R, and yet doesn't push that rating as far as it can go. Oddly, its simplicity makes it feels like it's aimed at kids.
In addition to the action, the entire look of the movie is dinner theater cheap. Everything from the sets to the costumes to the props just look like they were hastily constructed or gathered from other productions. All of the CGI doesn't fare much better, with one scene featuring some of the worst-looking fire ever put in a big studio production. That cheapness extends to the worldbuilding, which leaves the setting of this story feeling oddly anonymous. What is the name of this kingdom? Or its royal family for that matter? Why is Julius the only person that can marry the princess? Is there literally not any other choice? Don't think too hard about it, this movie doesn't expect that of anyone anyway.
The Princess cannot deliver on anything it promises, and its willingness to forego some of the most important parts of making a movie is almost an insult to the audience. This is a movie that feels like it can get away with anything so long as it delivers some "fun" action. However, since it falls so short of doing that either, all of its biggest problems become so much more glaring. It's easy to see why this movie was dumped onto streaming rather than being given a theatrical release, but maybe it would have been better off locked away in a tower.
The Princess is now streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus.
The Princess
The Princess is a Hulu original movie starring Joey King. King plays a strong princess who is set to marry a cruel sociopath. After refusing to go through with the wedding, she is locked in a tower while her suitor plots to take over the kingdom. The movie was released in 2022 and was directed by Le-Van Kiet.