The Princess and the Pilot,
aka Recollections of a Certain Pilot

The End-of-the-Road ROSSMAN

Hey, you know that movie — the one with the lady of a high social class who's forced into hanging out with the rough-around-the-edges good guy of a much lower caste, but then they're soon drawn together due to the crazy situation at hand, and despite the fact that she's going out with someone just as rich and prominent as she is (or she has the world at her well-manicured fingertips), she ends up falling for the diamond in the rough? Oh yeah... The first time I saw Overboard/Titanic/Dirty Dancing/Aladdin/Cocktail/Every Korean Drama Ever Made I thought it was alright... But then came along The Princess and the Pilot by famed anime studio Madhouse, and they gave the whole overdone tale an amazing twist: they took out all of the excitement and drama and then just let the remaining story sit there and fester for 2 hours of tedious apathy.

I had been looking forward to seeing this movie for over a year now, since Mehve and I caught a glimpse of its poster outside of some theaters it was playing at in Japan (while we were there last October). But when it was finally released on Blu-ray and I got my chance to experience it... Well, it took me over 4 hours to watch it because it just kept putting me to sleep and I had to keep pausing it to do some calisthenics, read my email, or watch my most recently recorded episode of 30 Rock on my DVR. This shit is boooooooooooooooooooooring. This entire fucking movie could have easily have been condensed into a single half-hour episode of some airplane TV show or whatever. There was definitely not enough material in this tale to fill a full feature length production.

Ready for the plot? Who cares. It goes something like this: There's this little island principality of a larger nation that's at war with another large nation. The princess of this island is gorgeous, friendly, demure, and kind of dumb. She's to marry the prince of the larger nation her people belong to. The prince is one dumb motherfucker too. Seriously stupid, but handsome — a total mimbo.

So the prince makes a decree that he'll take the princess as his wife as soon as his country kicks the other country's ass but good... Then everybody waits and waits for way more than a year (because wars take time, and mimbo prince is a total ra-tard). Finally the bad nation realizes that the princess' fatherland is pretty freaking far away, and that they can totally bomb her island without any real consequences (the princess' island is like 10 miles from the enemy nation's coast, and about three-days air travel to its main country's borders... Yet the enemy never fucking invades or shit! They just bomb it... Once. Slightly). After this "daring" nighttime attack (the small island's airforce wasn't even scrambled after their fucking palace was leveled!), the island's military command decides to ship the princess off air-mail to the mainland to keep her safe. Honestly, WHY DOESN'T THE ENEMY NATION (that's just 5 minutes away by air) FUCKING INVADE THIS PLACE! It's the home of the bride-to-be of their foe's prince! That's called a "prime fucking target."

Anyway, so the best pilot the island military can find is pretty much a third-class citizen of their "untouchable" caste, but he's a marvel behind the propeller! So they order him to not even LOOK at the beautiful princess he's transporting, and get her to the other side of the world in one piece so that the prince can get a piece of her ass, ifyouknowwhatImean... Then wackiness and cross-culture mix-ups occur!...

No, that's a lie. Nothing occurs. He simply transports the princess to the awaiting fleet, past enemy scout ships (that know his course and duty because they intercepted a telegram from the princess' hubby-to-be describing the top secret plan in detail BECAUSE HE IS A GODDAMN IDIOT.... or he wants her dead in order to create an international incident that will gain global pity in his favor... Hmmm, he's either a giant moron, or a brilliant tactician), with as little talking as possible.

Okay, two small chase scenes occur (about a minute of "action" a piece) during the hour of movie time that the mismatched couple are in transit, and one quick dogfight takes place (for maybe thirty seconds) too... But nothing kinky happens between the pilot and the princess because he's all honor bound to follow his orders, and she's been raised to do what's right for her country. Though we find out late in the story that they once met each other when they were children (the pilot's mom worked at the palace, but got fired for not knowing her place and was caught reading a story to the little royal girl), but that leads to nowhere, so what does jack shit matter in a handbasket... In the end, the pilot still dumps her with the air fleet on the other side of the ocean so that a non-untouchable can parade her into the capital to present her to the dumbass prince on a platter. She complains a bit (mostly because the commanders of the fleet she was dropped off with treat the pilot like shit), but she ends up leaving the poor shlump without any real argument. The end.

Yes, I just spoiled the shit out of this movie for you. You're welcome. You really didn't need to see it. It is soooooooo fucking stupid and slow. The characters never do anything exciting, and everybody gets dicked around in the end. I either outright hated or was completely ambivalent to every single character in this flick. There's no action, no romance, no drama, but a shit-ton of stupidity driving the "plot" forward. I detest stories that require people to do retarded stuff in order to drive the plot forward. Avoid this movie. Watch Porco Rosso instead for a REAL movie about a kick ass pilot.

The Princess and the Pilot was dumb. It was not fun to have to sit through. It almost put me to sleep 3 times. I'm so very glad I didn't waste a grand total of 100 minutes and ¥2500 to see this in an actual Japanese movie theater. What a waste of vacation time that would have been. I give it .25 out of 3.98 stars and recommend that you don't watch it.

ANGRY AMY

So, there's this princess, and she's dumber than a Disney princess, and she's marrying a prince who's dumber still... And then there's this pilot who's not even allowed to look at her while he's transporting her across the pond, and he pretty much does as he's ordered. And there's no flirting or "will they hook up, or won't they?" questions going on, because you know that they won't...

Do YOU want to watch that movie? If somebody had told me that that is what it was about I sure as all hell wouldn't have wasted an evening locked in the Rossman's house with his smelly gang watching this garbage. I am just dying to know who came up with the idea to budget in an expensive, hour and a half, animated feature with no story, no twists, and no drive. This piece of shit goes nowhere, and when it's all done all it leaves you with is a stiff neck from falling asleep at an odd angle on the couch, and a hatred of the writer and director for absolutely wasting your evening on something that doesn't even pull the slightest emotional involvement from you while watching it.

I truly wish this movie never happened.

iCARLY

This movie was fan-fucking-tastic! I haven't slept that well since The English Patient!

Two restful thumbs up from me, freaks!