Joey King Is Meant to Be a Disney Princess—but Not Like This
There’s a scene in Shrek where Princess Fiona, after waking from her serene slumber, battles an army of weapon-clad forest men looking to steal her away. This was not the princess archetype we’d come to expect in the early 2000s. Here was a beautiful woman who, though she was saved by an ogre, could fend off injustices with her own two fists. The scene was fun, Fiona continued to surprise audiences with new depth of character, and Shrek won us all over.
Now, imagine that one fight scene lasted an entire hour and a half. Lose all of the Donkey humor from Shrek, drop the onions, the enemies-to-lovers romance, and all of the Gingie goodness. If you wanted a movie of just Princess Fiona battling enemies for her own freedom, though I don’t know why anyone would, look no further than The Princess.
A princess fighting for her independence, laced with kickass fight scenes and brutal weapons, is a good starting place. The Princess just can’t make it any further than the baseline, spiraling into a video-game version of what could’ve been an enthralling story.