“First Daughter” (20th Century Fox)
Several months ago Mandy Moore starred in a film about the life of the President’s daughter. It was called “Chasing Liberty” and it was a failure at the box office. Now comes a film titled “First Daughter” and it too concerns the President’s daughter. Since it shares key plot points with the first film’s story, it should suffer a similar fate at the box office.
The one thing “First Daughter” has going for it that the first film didn’t have is the popularity of Katie Holmes. The popular “Dawson Creek” star shows a lot of beauty and poise in her role as Sam, the daughter of President Mackenzie (Michael Keaton). Sam is a good girl and a team player but she wants a normal life. With her father running for re-election this is not possible.
When Sam goes off to college a team of Secret Agents accompanies her. Her roommate Mia (Amerie Rogers) is annoyed by their presence as is Sam. She has a hard time being accepted as just another co-ed but does finally meet a cute guy named James (Marc Blucas). He seems to accept her for being herself and not for being the daughter of the President.
Complications ensue in this non-realistic look at how it was when Chelsea and/or the Bush twins went off to college. The actions of the students, the first daughter, the secret service, and the President are totally unrealistic and are portrayed in the best manner to gain a laugh or a dramatic moment.
Holmes is pretty and poised but never believable. She is more of a mannequin daughter than a real person. She and Blucas do have some chemistry together but the way their relationship is shown is fake from beginning to end.
One of the more outrageous points of the film is having “Batman” as President. Michael Keaton’s career has been in a slump of late, and this role is not going to bring it back. The movie also wastes Margaret Colin in her role as his wife. She has very little to do and doesn’t do a great job of this little bit.
The movie is rated PG for mild profanity.
Pre-teen girls will probably love the movie since Katie Holmes looks like a big Barbie doll. The rest of us will probably just exclaim, “Been there, done this, got a Mandy Moore tee-shirt!”
I scored “First Daughter” a non-elected 4 out of 10.
