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In the first Princess Diaries, Mia Thermopolis, played by the sweetly sassy Anne Hathaway, learned that she was princess of the fictitious Genovia. The sequel, also directed by Garry Marshall, takes place five years later, with Mia a college graduate preparing to assume the throne. Because of an old, obscure law, she must get married before she can become queen, so she and her grandmother, Queen Clarisse (Julie Andrews, who in one painfully awkward scene is forced to sing a duet with Raven, a former Cosby kid), set about finding a suitable match. Rival to the throne is the cute but obnoxious Nicholas Devereaux (Chris Pine), who can’t decide whether he wants to woo Mia or just annoy her back to the US. Filled with lots of girl-power posturing, especially for a movie that doesn’t see a problem with arranged marriages, Princess Diaries 2 lacks the spunk of the original. Mia ascends to the throne pretty early on, so there isn’t much riding on her marriage crisis, and though Hathaway is as sweet as ever, post-makeover Mia isn’t all that sassy. Unlike the subplot about the romance between Clarisse and her head of security (Hector Elizondo). Now that’s a movie I’d like to see. (120 minutes)
BY BROOKE HOLGERSON
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