Roman Holiday gets a teen makeover in this likeable spin-off from the Disney Channel's Lizzie McGuire show, with perky Hilary Duff (Agent Cody Banks) reprising her small-screen role as the gawky girl for whom nothing ever seems to go right.
OK, so Miss Duff is no Audrey Hepburn. But having flown to Italy on a class
trip with best pal Gordo (Adam Lamberg) and the rest of her chums, she gets
to do everything that Hepburn's runaway princess did 50 years ago: ride a
Vespa around town, change her hair, see the sights, and even fall in love.
The twist is Lizzie's new beau is Italian chart-topper Paolo (Yani Gellman),
whose singing partner Isabella has just walked out on him on the eve of a
major awards ceremony. As luck would have it Lizzie's the spitting image of
Isabella (what were the odds?), so Paolo decides to take her to the event
instead.
Can Lizzie pull off the deception without her tyrannical chaperone (Alex
Borstein) finding out? What will her mum and dad say when they discover
their daughter has become an international pop star overnight? And what will
happen when the real Isabella returns?
These aren't the kind of questions that will keep you up at night. But in
the context of a frothy kids' caper, they make for a pleasant chunk of
light-hearted wish fulfilment, punctuated throughout by comic asides from
Lizzie's miniature cartoon conscience - a regular fixture of the TV show,
faithfully maintained by director Jim Fall.
The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003)
