To belabor an obvious point, "The Prince and Me" is a romantic fantasy designed with young female audiences in mind. Like the various Mandy Moore and Hilary Duff offerings, it's living proof that today's girls, to use a favorite expression of demographers, are "flexing their muscles in the marketplace."

Funny thing, when girls flex their muscles — the contractions tend to cut off the flow of blood to the brain, at least where movies are concerned. Moore's "Chasing Liberty" was especially brutal, like being placed in a cinematic sleeper hold.

"The Prince and Me," starring Julia Stiles (“Save the Last Dance") as a Wisconsin farm girl who unwittingly falls in love with the prince of Denmark, is more like a playful throttling. Sure, it's formulaic; yes, it's shallowly wishful, but not without a certain disarming funniness and a few endearing performances. Directed by Martha Coolidge (“Valley Girl"), it's no "Chasing Liberty," let's put it that way.

Curiously, the screenwriters behind the Eddie Murphy vehicle "Coming to America" go uncredited in "The Prince and Me," even though the latter is essentially an all-Caucasian remake. Bored, spoiled Prince Edvard "Eddie" Dangaard (Luke Mably from "28 Days Later") wants to experience life as a commoner, so he takes his faithful valet (Ben Miller) and escapes to America, where no one knows him from Adam. Enticed by a "Girls Gone Wild"-style TV spot, Eddie enrolls at a Wisconsin university and quickly meets Paige (Julia Stiles), an ambitious pre-med major bound for Johns Hopkins who has no room in her life for follies such as romance. After the obligatory bumpy introduction, Paige warms to this thin, mysterious blond with the devoted older friend who irons his boxer shorts. Later, she invites Eddie back to the farm for Thanksgiving, where he learns to milk a cow and distinguishes himself in the annual lawnmower grand prix.

Inevitably, Eddie's true identity is revealed, causing Paige to feel betrayed, then flattered, so she really has no choice but to hop a jet for Denmark and get a taste of life as a real, live princess. After a few blissful days of jewelry ogling with the queen (Miranda Richardson) and custom designer gown fittings, the other shoe drops: Paige must choose between a pampered life of royal spousehood and following her own
dream of becoming a crusading doctor.

If memory serves, Stiles faced a similar dilemma in "Mona Lisa Smile" last winter, which raises a question: How many times can we see an actor perform the same trick and still have the slightest interest in the outcome? Stiles, with her scrawny elegance and homely smile, makes us care a little, but not in the way that recalls Hollywood's great movie starlets. Unlike Eddie, I wouldn't turn around my horse for her.