Posted: 06/28/2009

Princess Protection Program

(2009)

by Laura Tucker

One of the most outstanding traditions at Disney is their princesses. They’ve had them going all the way back to Snow White up through The Little Mermaid. In fact the princess in question in Princess Protection Program even seems to be wearing a recycled yellow Belle gown from Beauty and the Beast straight out of the Disney Store costume aisle.

This princess, Rosalinda (Demi Lovato), is quite at home being a royal in her small country. To protect the world’s princesses, it seems they set up the princess protection program, something that Rosalinda doesn’t know about until the day she needs the protection, when a dictator invades her homeland.

Other princesses have been sent to all sorts of exotic and far out places throughout the world, but Rosalinda is sent to the United States to stay with an agent in the Program, Mason (Tom Verica), who lives in rural Louisiana. Mason has a daughter Rosie’s age, Carter (Selena Gomez), a tomboy who isn’t too happy about sharing her dad and her home with this other girl. She gives the princess all her unwanted chores to do, such as counting the worms they have available to sell for bait.

The two girls don’t stay at odds long, though, as Carter teaches Rosie the ins and outs of being your average teenage girl, and Rosie teaches Carter how to act more refined, like a princess. Carter’s goal is to capture the attention of the hottest guy at school, and Rosie’s is just to return to her homeland as the heir of the throne and the future queen.

What makes Princess Protection Program unique, more so than other Disney princess movies, is that the actresses that play the two girls in question really are best friends in real life, and aren’t just playing the roles here on TV. That adds a certain warmth to the film. In the clips that follow the feature presentation on the DVD, Lovato and Gomez appear as themselves, best friends more than actresses. These are the type of girls you want your daughters to emulate. With any luck, they’ll stay this way and not be changed by Hollywood.

Princess Protection Program is currently airing on the Disney Channel and will be available on DVD on June 30.

Laura Tucker Laura Tucker is the webmaster of Reality Shack, and its accompanying Reality Shack Blog, and is a freelance writer providing reviews of movies and television, among other things, at Viewpoints. She is also an Associate Instructor and 2nd dan black belt in tae kwon do with South Elgin Martial Arts. Laura can be reached at LauraBelle@realityshack.com

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