2004, PG, 101 minutes

Hollywood seems to drop a modern-day Cinderella story on us every few weeks. These cookie-cutter love stories are usually formulaic and completely predictable, but occasionally one can sneak in (like the recent Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!) and overcome its inherent limitations by charming us with well-cast leads who click together onscreen. Unfortunately, Julia Stiles and British newcomer Luke Mably don't click in the bland The Prince & Me.

Prince Edvard Valdemar Dangaard of Denmark (Mably) is one bored king-in-waiting. The press hounds him wherever he goes, and he has yet to experience anything resembling a quiet, normal life. A TV ad for a "Girls Gone Wild"-type video gives him the idea that American college girls are where it's at, so he decides to enroll as a college student in Wisconsin. His parents don't approve, of course, and they insist Prince Edvard bring along his loyal servant Soren (Ben Miller). The Prince's plan is to keep his royal identity under wraps so he can experience anonymity for the first time in his life, so he hits campus as "Eddie," with Soren as his roommate.

Paige Morgan (Stiles) is a pre-med student with dreams of becoming a doctor. Working as a bartender at a campus bar, Paige meets and rebuffs a drunken Eddie. But the Prince is smitten, so he won't let a seltzer spray-down deter him. He enrolls in her classes and takes a job at the bar to be near her at all times. Paige, the serious student, is not impressed. Over time, surprisingly enough, Eddie begins to win her over. Paige even invites him home with her to rural Wisconsin for Thanksgiving break. Eddie bonds with Paige's family, helping on the farm and participating in a riding lawnmower race. Yes, a riding lawnmower race.

The two begin to fall in love, but it's only a matter of time before the press catches wind of Eddie's princely endeavor. Paige is horrified to find out that Eddie is actually a Danish prince. He lied to her! Since the poster for the movie shows Stiles in a princess gown next to her prince, it's hardly a spoiler to say that Paige has a change of heart and journeys to Denmark to stand by her man. King Haraald (James Fox) is gravely ill, so Eddie stands to take the throne sooner than expected. Paige clashes with Queen Rosalind (an underused Miranda Richardson), but she seems to like wearing the pretty dresses. Will Paige give up her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor to become the Queen of Denmark?

The real problem with The Prince & Me isn't its lame predictability. After all, wasn't the universally-loved Pretty Woman, for example, borrowing from the same Cinderella formula? A successful romantic comedy doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, but it does need two leads with believable chemistry together. Unfortunately, Stiles and Mably are a mismatch. They're never convincing as a couple. Actually, Stiles does better in her early scenes during Paige's initial dislike of Eddie.

The Prince & Me is also curiously low on energy. Veteran director Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl, Rambling Rose) keeps a sluggish pace (even the action-packed lawnmower race sequence barely registers interest), and allows the film to just kind of lumber along until a choppy ending arrives. Stiles is charming enough on her own, though, and she may be enough to please the movie's target audience: young girls who hope that someday their prince will come.