What recently released movie excited both my youngest daughter (10) and my best friends oldest daughter (14)? Ice Princess!

This past weekend while my oldest daughter (14) spent the night at a good friends home and followed through with plans to meet some dozen friends at the opening of Ring Two, my youngest daughter (and I) spent time at my best friends home, and we went to see Ice Princess, a Disney film. All four of us enjoyed the movie and were pleasantly surprised that although it was somewhat similar to certain other family oriented films, it maintained enough unique traits to offer (what we felt to be) a refreshing movie screening.

========== Plot Spoilers Involved in Review ==========
Plot Synopsis
Ice Princess is primarily about a high school physics geek student -Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg)- that while in pursuit of completing a incredibly geeky summer project in order to hopefully obtain a scholarship to Harvard (based on the properties of Figure Skating), finds and pursues her underlying and overwhelming dream to be a figure skating champion. This movie has some stereotypical high school characters, that as peers of Casey, are much more popular in school and display disapproval of her rambling geeky sentences. But the film also has refreshing twists, whereas the popular kids stray from the normal film path and show a humane side. Overall the plot carries a theme that mostly is fantasy based (umm, most top scoring figure skaters start at a much younger age). Regardless it is kid-friendly, G rated, and likely to be enjoyed by most viewers in the 8-12 range, and perhaps their parents. All things considered this movie is appreciated by the intended crowd: children.

Family Friendly
As the Mom of a young (shh! Don't tell her I said 'young') girl I appreciate movies that don't overemphasize sexual relationships and kissy face moments. While Ice Princess has a handful of 'kissing' moments, boy/girl relationships (in my view) weren't the primary emphasis of this movie. In fact there is zero nudity and no mention of sexual affairs. Additionally the language choices remain fine, as does the music. Overall it is a good show for children.

The movie actually exhibits very involoved relationships between certain mothers and their teenage daughters. Joan Carlyle (Joan Cusack) is obsessed with setting her daughter Casey onto the proper educational track. While Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall) is, well, attempting to live her dream of being a figure skate champion through her daughter Gen Harwood (Hayden Panettiere). Although the parents exhibit certain annoying traits, in the end (and at points throughout the movie) the love they maintain for their kids shows through, and a message is set with regard to allowing your children to express (and follow) their dreams.

As the parent of two daughters that are members of a competitive dance team, I can say that this movie successfully touches on the stressful lifestyles that competitive children and their parents undergo. There is one scene that reminded my friend and I of a certain annoying dance team member (and parent) that the competitive team (that our daughters are on) haa to deal with. Oh how my friend I cringed when, toward the end of the show, "The Jumping Shrimp" had a tantrum and then put on a smirky sweeter than ever face to the media. I suppose there is one in every competitive scene.

Surprisingly to me, the popular girl -Gen - actually makes some ethical choices toward the geek kid - Casey. And the over-competitive (knock the other kids down so my kid can succeed) mom -Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall)- has a turn of heart. However, as with all movies, this show also has certain plot moments that make the mom side of me cringe, but if we get too caught up into the Hollywood plots, it is doubtful we would let our children view any movies. I just reminded my daughter that education pursuit is very important. Regardless, various scenes in the movie exhibit that it is okay to have book smarts, which is refreshing.

Final Thoughts
It is my view that the movie flowed at a good pace, both for our children and us adults. The kids in the movie were dressed tastefully (none of those thong-undies showing over the top of too-low jeans). There were some beautiful ice skating moments, which seemed realistic. We paid full price to view this movie, and although I don't regret it, I maintain the opinion that this would be a good choice for matinee times. However we had a gift-certificate and a rain-filled evening, which seemed perfect a movie-filled night. My daughter (10) stated that she really liked Ice Princess and wants to purchase the DVD, when released. Although my friends daughter (14) also liked the movie, my older daughter (14) had no interest in seeing it. I feel that, all things considered, this was a better than average family friendly movie.

(c)2005 Lisa_J

Recommended: Yes