Brides and Blades

Over Fourth of July weekend, my parents and I were browsing Hulu and decided to watch The Princess, starring Joey King and Dominic Cooper. We figured, “Oh, this is a new original movie. This should be a good watch.” The movie begins, and we’re introduced to a fiery, red-haired princess with a proficiency in weaponry. I feel like I’ve seen that before, but that could just be me. No big deal.

We see that this combative princess, who lives in a lakeside castle (complete with tower), is being forced to marry someone against her will…because of royal tradition…and now she’s fighting to…rebel against said tradition…

Oh, great. The Princess is Pixar’s Brave if the bears were replaced with an R rating.

Disturbing similarities to Brave aside, The Princess is a medieval action romp about a princess fighting for her family and her life when a power-hungry lord takes over her home in order to marry her. The story was certainly there, but was it executed well? To determine this, we’ll look at two key elements of a good story: the Plot and the Characters.

The story begins with Merida--Oh, wait, sorry, “the Princess” (yes, that’s how she’s identified in the credits; her name is never mentioned) waking up in bed, wearing a wedding dress and manacles on her wrists. As she tries to figure out how she ended up there, two less-than-savory soldiers enter to check on her. Within moments, she gets violent and kills them both. It’s not until after this ordeal that we see a flashback of the events that led up to this: she backed out of a political marriage, and now her ex-fiancé is taking over the castle.

I actually liked this opening scene. The art of storytelling has changed over the years. Before, they would begin with a preamble of sorts. “Once upon a time...” “In a time before Time…” “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” These narrations, either read or told by a faceless narrator, would set the scene and explain what was happening.

Nowadays, it’s considered good writing if you start in the middle of the action. While this does leave the audience wondering, “Wait, what’s going on?” it also gives them a chance to discover the answers for themselves as the story progresses. Instead of inadvertently insulting the audience’s intelligence by explaining everything beforehand, writers create an opportunity to exercise one’s own deductive reasoning and expectation.

The Princess did that here. We’re dropped into an unfamiliar setting and slowly acquire the knowledge needed to understand the situation. This was a very strong point.

Much of the background information is given through flash backs, such as the marriage talks and how the Princess learned to fight. While not always the cleanest of setups, they did share pertinent knowledge with decent prompts. Were there other ways they could have delivered that info? Maybe, but they did well with what they had.

Most of the film was the Princess making her way down the castle tower, sneaking past or beating down enemy soldiers as she descended. The “stealth” scenes built tension well, and the fight scenes had good choreography. There was a comedic element there, too, like the filmmakers knew things were going to be humorous but still filmed it like it was serious business. Do I question why the dude with the bull-horn helmet actually charged the Princess like a bull? Yes. Did I still enjoy it? Absolutely.

Despite the fun action, not all of the fight scenes felt justified.

There were times where I felt a fight happened just because the filmmakers had a quota to fill. Take the Golden Knight encounter, for example. While sneaking around, the Princess crawled through a grate and into one of the castle’s many rooms. As she emerged, she passed under a suit of armor she assumed was just on display. A couple of moments later, the “armor” attacked her.

Why was that knight just standing in the room doing nothing? Why didn’t he raise the alarm when he found the Princess? For that matter, how come none of the soldiers she ran into thought she was the princess their boss was trying to marry? All of them fought to kill, even though if they did manage to slay her, they would’ve been brutally executed for ruining their leader’s plans. Was no one told what the Princess looked like?

Based on how the story progressed, it felt more like an indie, one-off video game than a feature film. Racing through the halls covered classic Metroid-vania platforming. Sneaking through a dining room full of soldiers was a stealth mission. The random duels with non-generic knights and soldiers were mini-boss fights. The disjointed or sporadic encounters work within a video game setting, but not so much for a movie.

Now that we’ve covered the initial plot, let’s look at some of the characters. The two most prominent ones were the Princess, our plucky protagonist, and Julius, the tyrannical antagonist.

Despite being the leading lady, the Princess did not go through much in the way of character development. Her goal was to rescue her family, and there was no notable personal growth to equip her for the final confrontation. It was pretty much “get good” and move on from there. If anything, most of her growth was showcased during the flashbacks instead of the present plot.

Does this make her a bad protagonist? Far from it.

Main characters tend to fall into two categories: either they change personally due to their experiences, or they change the people around them. In this case, the Princess falls under the latter. From the very beginning (and before that, if you include the flashbacks), she dug her heels when it came to following tradition and tried to forge a different path. While her personality may have come off as flat, her actions influenced the people around her, changing them for the better.

On the flip side, we have Julius, who epitomizes the extreme side of tradition. He is ruthless, driven by a sense of grand entitlement. Whatever he wants, he gets. Fame and glory? He goes out and kills for it. A chance to be king? He makes a bid for the Princess’s hand in marriage, even though he still actively engages with his second-in-command side chick. Gets left at the alter? He takes over the castle and holds the Princess’s family hostage in order to “get what’s rightfully his.” If you’re worried that he’s a one-note villain, be at ease. When his plans for the crown get continually thwarted, he makes a choice that is so vile and low, it makes all the murder in this movie seem ethical (I won’t spoil what it is, though).

In the same way that protagonists fall under two categories, villains also tend to fall into one of two categories: they will either play opposite the protagonist, or parallel to them. If an antagonist plays opposite of the hero, their goals and values are in direct opposition of each other. They will be the Yin to the protagonist’s Yang. A clash of differences. On the other hand, a parallel antagonist looks almost exactly like the protagonist. They both had similar circumstances, and maybe even their end goals are nearly the same. However, while the protagonist responds to these influences in one way, the antagonist makes a different choice, one that will inevitably clash with the hero.

Surprisingly, Julius falls under both categories.

He plays opposite the Princess on the coin of royal tradition. She wants to break away from it, while he wants to exploit it. He also plays the parallel antagonist, but instead of casting the dark reflection of the Princess, he lines up with her father, the King (again, that is how his character is credited). While the King is torn between following tradition and being a father, Julius refuses to let tradition be ignored, especially if it keeps him from getting what he wants. Both want to uphold tradition, but Julius takes a different, more extreme approach.

With this story and these characters combined, what message did The Princess leave audiences? Unsurprisingly, it teaches a similar lesson to Brave and other contemporary Disney princesses: be true to yourself and appreciate your own talents, regardless of what “tradition” says. Was it successful in doing so? Despite some bumps in the road, it was certainly delivered in one piece.

The Princess probably won’t become the next cult classic like The Princess Bride, but for those who enjoy movies with light plot and heavy action, this makes for a fresh change of pace. The fight choreography makes for good eye candy, and there is a decent story to be told. If you’ve got an hour and a half to kill and don’t mind a bit of blood, then yeah, take a stab at it.