Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

QueerVamp20 This movie wasn't super popular when it came out. But the same young girl who played Harriet The Spy is more grown up in this movie about following your dreams but not allowing it to hurt other people - Young Casey is a high school student who has to work on a project for her entry for a scholarship to Harvard - She is a science-geek - She decides to analyze figure skating and see if there is a scientific formula to do it well - and for Casey she does it Very Well!!! - I don't want to give a lot away because this is one of those movies where you just have to watch it - I have watched it over 30 times - It is one of my favorites - If you like movies with talent, heart, and goal achievements along with a bit of geek to chic - You will skate your way to the top with Casey in Ice Princess!!!

elodie-r Good points:1. Hero is a scientist not an actressI think this movie was very good at portraying a female character who is normal, and good at physics, I was nicely surprised by it. She was simple and not arrogant like the usual science geek cliché. This kind of character is really rare and the actress played her well without too many idiotic clichés about science geeks (except for the science blabbing which real science people don't talk in real life). It is refreshing that the girl does not dream of becoming an actress but her thing is physics.2. Girls are supportive of each otherThe fact that the girls support each other and are not mean for no reason is also very new and positive.3. Science project is pretty coolAs a woman in technology myself, I found that the idea of applying her physics knowledge to her skating passion was awesome and cool. Actually this is what make scientists great, they apply science to whatever interests them and that's how they innovate and invent. During all the movie I liked the plot of her doing a science project on her passion and I thought this would be the message, she would get her scholarship because she made some findings (silly me!). I almost rated the movie 9 if it was not for the ending and the general cliché message. Bad points:1. Glamorous is better than scienceI have nothing against ice skating, it is indeed beautiful and I understand that girls love it, I love it too. But the whole glamor vs brainy schema where the glamor wins just kills any feminine ambition there could be to become a scientist. It implies that science is no good and not something you chose and love, just something you do because you are forced to. This movie actually justifies why there are no women in STEM fields. Girls are encouraged to pursue the glamorous path even though they display talent in science which is actually a huge gift. Even though they rock at physics they become more motivated to become show girls, sad right ? Story tellers repeatedly fail at showing that you can love science and be pretty it is NOT a sin! Instead, the feminine ideal is set to be "beautiful and show girl", how do you expect girls to develop the confidence to become scientists? The movie sets an ideal that is really low. I think those story tellers don't think about that when they write their story. They just look for "what has been done until now, let's do the same because it works (well we hear nobody complaining)". They don't realize that girls who love science get no support at all from story tellers. This kind of story is very harmful for the minds of girls who could have greater ambitions. At the end of the movie I felt sorry for the hero because she had a brilliant path in front of her that she just gave away.2. Science geeks can't have any passionThe movie opposes glamor and ice skating to doing science, like you can't have a passion when you are a scientist. This is just not true. The story tellers obviously don't know any scientists or haven't done any research prior to writing the story. They just worked from the old cliché "a scientist is an old and dull person who talks in formulas". Scientists have passions. Their lives are not all about science. The science is their technique but applied to what they love, they create wonders and inventions (see the inventions of photography, planes or computers !). This girl could have invented a new kind of ice skates, or she could have become an engineer in aerodynamics, textile engineer, software engineer, researcher, she would have been inspired by her ice skating to innovate in those fields. Instead, no, she just blew off Harvard to go ice skating. It is really not realistic because ice skaters train since they are 5, and honestly when you realize you are gifted in science, this is not something that you let go like that. The message of the movie is really bad for girls, yet it's those movies that inspire them the ideals to pursue. They could have just tweaked the story to show that she still loves physics or that Harvard actually cares about her ice skating.3. Missed opportunity to inspire science girlsHow many movies have there been about actresses or ice skaters? Plenty ! In fact, whenever there is a female hero with status, she is always an actress. Ughh. This type of movie is exactly the type of movies that girls watch. It was a wonderful opportunity to show them what cool stuff you can do with science! Instead of that, it seemed that the girl was not that passionate about physics, she was just excellent at it. Shame! Excellent at science? It is a super power! Yet, the movie showed that it had no value at all. I get it, the movie was about pursuing your passion instead of someone else's dream, if your passion is ice skating, go for it. But honestly, do girls who want to be ice skaters need this movie to encourage them? Everything encourages girls to be actresses or show girls, why do movies keep repeating themselves and fail to inspire girls to do greater things in science too?

SnoopyStyle Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a gifted science nerd. Her teacher asks her to do a science project to get a scholarship. Her serious mother Joan (Joan Cusack) is set for her to go to Harvard. Meanwhile popular girl Gen Harwood (Hayden Panettiere) is training to be a world class figure skater under her demanding mother/coach Tina (Kim Cattrall). When Casey starts to learn figure skating, she turns out to be a natural.It's a little bit unbelievable that the girl becomes a great skater so quickly. At least Trachtenberg can highlight her skating and comedic abilities in this movie. However if you dig a little deeper into this standard Disney fare, there is a good movie about mother-daughter relationships. That's the heart of the movie, and what separates from the other cheesy teen movies. The adult characters are allowed to be real. The two girls are more than two-dimensional high school stereotypes.

richartc As a figure skater I find this movie incredibly insulting. No matter how much "natural talent" a person has, it is impossible for someone to become that good of a skater in such a short period of time, especially someone her age in the movie. Not only that but there are multiple tests that a skater has to pass in order to compete at that level, and it's not like you can take the tests whenever you want, you have to wait until a test session to take them. Also there's no way she could have competed without her mother knowing, because as a minor you have to have your parent's consent in order to compete (unless of course she forger her mother's signature). Sure the message of the movie is nice, the dialogue is okay, and I like the main actors, but it's just so incredibly unrealistic. I'm 17 and have been skating since I was 7, and skated competitively from the age of 18-13. I spend countless hours training, and its incredibly insulting of Disney to make that portrays figure skating as being something any person with a good understanding of physics could be good at. And as a figure skater the most insulting thing you can tell me is that figure skating is easy. And it's because of movies like this, that people think that. So sure if you want a heart-warming mediocre movie then by all means go see Ice princess, but if you want to see a movie that is far more realistic about figure skating, I think you'll have better luck with Blades of Glory.