Ice Princess is a 2005 Disney live action film, directed by Tim Fywell.
This film was rated G by the MPAA
Summary
Casey Carlyle (
Michelle Trachtenberg), is a brainy
bookworm and
physics geek. Casey decides to use her academic skill by pursuing a
scholarship offered to the top
students in the
state. For the scholarship, Casey must do a "personal" project about physics. While watching a figure skating competition featuring
Sasha Cohen, Casey realizes that her hobby,
ice skating, would make a perfect project for getting her scholarship. Initially, she watches other skaters at the local
ice rink, but decides to try to improve her own skating by applying the physics and what she found out from analyzing other skaters. She becomes exceptionally good at skating, even skipping two levels to get a Junior Pass.
Unsure of what she really wants, Casey has a difficult time juggling schoolwork, skating, and a job at a food stand to pay for her skating lessons. Her mother (Joan Cusack) realizes that her daughter's constant skating is affecting her schoolwork and tells her to stop.
Meanwhile, there is increasing tension between Casey's coach Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a disgraced former skater, and her daughter Gen (Hayden Panettiere). In this case, Tina, who manages the ice skating rink where Casey is training for competition, is putting her daughter into a strict training program and an even stricter diet. This irritates Gen, who has already begun to lose interest in skating and simply wants to be a normal teenager and student. Eventually Gen gets fed up and informs her mother and then Casey that she's quitting after Tina bought Casey new skates which caused Casey to slip and fall.
Tina becomes Casey's personal coach and helps her train for Sectionals, after Casey turns down a scholarship to Harvard to keep skating with help from Gen. At Sectionals, Casey performs well. In a triple loop jump, she slips and falls, but then she sees her mother in the spectators, which boosts her confidence and she gives a highly rated artistic performance. By the end of Sectionals, Casey has come in second, behind Nikki Fletcher, and is going to the nationals. Casey and her mom reconcile after two months, and Casey finally gains her mother's support.
Cast
Factual errors
- In the final standings posting of the Regional Championship, Worcester, Massachusetts is misspelled twice -- in the 1st place with Zoe Bloch, and the 6th place with Avril Dishaw -- it is spelled as "Wooster", Massachusetts. There is no Wooster in Massachusetts. It is in Ohio. However, Worcester is pronounced "Wooster".
- The kids and Casey are automatically in Juvenile, which skips Pre-Preliminary, Preliminary, and Pre-Juvenile.
- Music that a skater skates to in the long program and short program must be instrumental, without a person singing.
- As the last skater at sectionals, Casey would not be skating on clean ice; nor would there be theatrical lighting.
- ESPN does not cover junior sectionals (or any junior events).
- In a real test to pass to the next level, the lights are on and there are no spotlights. There is a maximum of two people on the ice at a time, and there is nothing on the ice and no music. You cannot skip two levels, and there are two tests to pass for one level.
- The kids were learning Freestyle 2 and Freestyle 6 moves, not Snowplow Sam.
- While narrating her project video, Casey says "Now, I’m going to increase the centripetal force by tucking in my arms. This will increase my moment of inertia, so I will spin faster." Regarding moment of inertia, this is exactly backward. Bringing in the arms will reduce her moment of inertia. (It is true that she will spin faster, to conserve angular momentum.)
- At the party, Casey states that "velocity times momentum equals acceleration". This is false; velocity multiplied by momentum yields only mv2, which is just kinetic energy multiplied by two. This isn't an expression for acceleration, and is not fundamentally meaningful. In fact, force divided by mass equals acceleration.
- Also at the party, Casey uses m as the variable for momentum, the symbol for momentum is p.
- And finally, the reason that the person on the zipline ultimately hits the window has very little to do with his mass, velocity, and momentum and a lot more to do with the fact that the zipline itself ends above the window.
Reception
Film critic Roger Ebert gives Ice Princess three out of four stars and commended the film for its entertaining nature and ability to overcome cliche and "formula". Reaction from other critics have been mixed, as 53% of the T-meter critics on Rotten Tomatoes reviewed the film positively. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcastingrated the film A-I (suitable for general patronage) and provided the film a modest praise as a good family film. It is rated G by the Motion Pictures Association of America.
Production and continuity errors
- Zoe Bloch's name is frequently spelled wrong.
- There are many times where a microphone is visible.
- In the ending scene, When Tina and Joan (Casey's mom) are arguing, Tina says "only if she wins sectionals" but it should have been nationals because sectional had already been won (the 2nd competition where she got 2nd place). But it can be argued that because she did not win 1st place in that competition, even had Casey won the Nationals, they want her to skate a clean program to win next year.
- When Chantelle skated, she was spinning counter-clockwise, but then she did a clockwise Axel.
Real skaters on set
Soundtrack album
Track listing
- Reach - Caleigh Peters
- If I Had It My Way - Emma Roberts
- Get Your Shine On - Jesse McCartney
- You Set Me Free - Michelle Branch
- Reachin' For Heaven - Diana DeGarmo
- No One - Aly & AJ
- It's Oh So Quiet - Lucy Woodward
- Get Up - Superchick
- I Fly - Hayden Panettiere
- Just A Dream - Jump5
- Bump - Raven-Symoné
- There Is No Alternative - Tina Sugandh
- King of Kings - Motorhead
- Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
References
External links