Before you go to see this movie, ask yourself how many times has the Cinderella story been told? A quick browse on the Internet gave me a rough count of 37. That’s 37 times that one story has been told. That’s a clue, now factor into the equation that this movie is geared towards a teen-aged audience and that should tell you all you need to know about what kind of cinematic experience you can expect. But fear not, I suffered so that you don’t have to.

Hillary Duff, for all intents and purposes, plays Cinderella and has held on to her father’s childhood tales of how a "Little Princess" meets her prince, where princes can be found…in Princeton, New Jersey. After her father’s unfortunate death she believes her fairy tale can only be lived thousands of miles away from where she grew up in the San Fernando Valley in California. As a result, she has done all she can to make the grades necessary to get into Princeton, and to ingratiate herself with her stepmother, whose help she needs to pay for school.

Speaking of which, what kind of Cinderella story would you have without a cruel stepmother and hurtful stepsisters? So insert Stiffler’s mom from "American Pie" (Jennifer Coolidge) and two young ladies with annoying voices and over-acting skills, and your cast is complete. Now of course you have to have a decent complementary cast of supporters, such as Regina King, as a fairy godmother (of sorts) and a-what-is-he-doing-here performance put in by Paul Rodriguez. I guess he’s sort of like the pumpkin that turned into a carriage and the mice who turned into steeds in the original story. They all look like good actors, but upon closer inspection with the material they have to work with, appearances are definitely deceiving,

It’s one thing that I didn’t like this movie, but the fact that it drew little to no positive reactions from the members of the audience at the screening I attended, who are in the target demographics for this movie, is really why I give this movie such low marks.