I'm not going to say I went to this movie with any expectations, I'm not that foolish. I knew it was for 13 year old girls, and if I had to write down what the major plot points would be before I actually saw the movie, I think I would have had a pretty accurate list.
What drove me to the theater was Mandy Moore, She gave a surprising good performance in "A Walk to Remember", and you have to admire a pop princess who chooses to dye her hair brown.
Unfortunately, and I think this is more writing than Mandy's acting, her character Anna Foster is not very likable at all. She's going through the typical Disney princess "I want to see how the other side lives" phase, but her rebellion strangely includes wanting to drink as much as possible, making out with strange boys, and the need to go to the "Love Festival." A tad risque for the target audience if you ask me.
Anna's love interest, Ben (Matthew Goode) is a little more likable, and though his character succumbs to bad lines, Matthew's crooked smile and overall charisma shines through, and I hope to see him in more (and better) films.
Jeremy Piven and Annabella Sciorra play Anna's bodyguards who have to chase Anna around Europe, and oddly enough, their scenes and interactions with each other are way more entertaining and interesting than what's going on with Anna and Ben.
The highlight of the movie is the Beautiful locations of Prague, Venice, and Germany. If I got nothing else from the movie, it was probably a deepened desire to travel around Europe.
A number of people have made the obvious comparison between this movie and Roman Holiday (which is an excellent film, and one of my favorites), and I'm going to go a step farther and say this flick was like a combo of two Disney TV Movies from 1998, "My Date with the Presidents Daughter" and "Sabrina (the teenage witch) goes to Rome." One had the beautiful European scenery, and the other had, well, the Presidents daughter rebelling while dragging along a guy. The thing that makes these two movies superior to Chasing Liberty is that they were free.
