The Ice Princes: Movie & DVD Review (2005)

(Originally published 2005)

A G-rated family movie from director Tim Fywell that takes the physics of figure skating literally, with Michelle Trachtenberg as a girl with a mind for science who crunches numbers to achieve the perfect triple axel and Lutz.

Here, as Casey Carlyle, she plays a sweet girl saddled with mother Joan (Joan Cusack), a humorless feminist who already has Casey's life planned for her--she will go to Harvard and become a scientist. End of story.

But Casey has her own ideas about her life--she decides she likes ice skating--which sends the film straight to the rink, where its core audience of tweens learn from the film's studio, Disney, that it's a cruel world after all.

The movie gets its edge from several sharp corners--Cusack, who could play this role in her sleep, as well as Kim Cattrall ("Sex and the City") as Casey's icy trainer, Tina Harwood. This is pure formula, but the cast rises above it with a few fiery moments. Trachtenberg is especially good, as is Hayden Panettiere as her ice skating friend. Michelle Kwan and Brian Boitano appear in grating cameos.

Grade: B-