The Princess & the Marine (2001)
Based on a true story, American Marine Jason Johnson (Goselaar) is sent on assignment to the Emirate of Bahrain. While there, he meets and falls in love with a spirited, lovely young woman, Meriam (Nichols), without realizing she is really a member of the Bahraini Royal Family. Meriam, who does not wish to consent to an arranged marriage, knows her love affair with Jason is dangerous, as he is a Mormon Christian and she a Muslim. Her parents would never consent to their match, and so Meriam and Jason race against time to escape Bahrain and make it to the United States, where they can marry. If Meriam is sent back, however, her life may be in jeopardy.
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Reviews
Pretty Good
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
This is a horrible movie that shows that the director/producer/actors did not at all bother find out about a culture they are talking about.This movie is full of flaws and displays a totally wrong picture of the Arabic/Muslim culture. Even the infrastructure of Bahrain is shown as old/poor with camels and stuff.Any person who ever has seen any of the gulf countries (some of the richest countries in the world) will see that the infrastructure is in much better shape and way more modern that in the US or western Europe...And no attention is given to the fact that the adult marine is actually having his love-affair with a minor, which is not romantic, but disgusting.This movie really just makes me wanna puke my guts out!Disgusting, simplistic and manipulative!
Having been to Bahrain, I enjoyed picking apart all the inaccuracies in the film. Like: The Manai plaza is in the middle of a sand lot and is much more militarized. The rooms in the movie were your standard sized Hollywood "barracks room" set. The rooms at the Manai are huge, and by hotel standards, rather top notch. The mall is in the middle of the city, not the suburbs. A house like the one the princess lived in wouldn't be on a tree lined boulevard, open to the common folk. Most nice homes over there are behind walls. The "Tree of Life", being the only thing worth seeing over there, would not be so isolated as to allow the princess to talk to, much less make out with, an unclean infidel. Tourists go there all the time. Whoever suggested shooting in suburban southern California should have been fired. They were in Vegas anyway,why not shoot there?
Like most women in their mid-20s (I just turned 25 this week),I obviously try to see everything I can with Zac Morris, ever since he hit the scene back in 1987 with Good Morning Miss Bliss, so the Princess and the Marine was no exception. But what I wasn't prepared for was the depth of his portrayal. I mean, I knew he was H-O-T-T (he's so fine I needed an extra T!), but I didn't realize that he could so convincingly play the part of a US Marine stationed in an small Arab country who falls in love with a princess whom he meets in a shopping mall and subsequently spirits out of the country while she is dressed as a marine (albeit a short one, but she did wear a baseball cap after all). The best part of all of it though is how romantic the whole story is! Its just like that time when I was the applied math department graduate student representative (albeit a short one, and I don't really wear baseball caps that much) and I fell in love with one of the students who complained to me about the use of inappropriate humour and coarse language by other students in the computer lab (I mean, except for the fact that he hasn't spirited me out of the country - YET! a girl can dream can't she?!!) It's so romantic because its true! Anyway, my point is that sometimes made-for-TV romance movies reflect what actually happens in real life, even when they're based on actual real-life events. Its kind of like life imitating art imitating life, except that in the first place the life was about a marine and a princess, and the art isn't really art so much as it is a kind of lousy made for TV movie starring Zack Morris, and the life which imitates the whole thing is about a grad student who doesn't like funny books being put on his desk, and not about a marine at all. But I will always be his princess! I digress. The real point is this - The Princess and the Marine is one of the best movies out there about True Love, and whether you're a marine or a marine biologist, or just a founding member of the like really club, it will make you fall in love all over again. It did for me!
Would love to own this movie. Tried to find it on Bockbuster.com and it wasn't there. I will never forget that movie as long as I live. Romantic, action, intense, raw...The characters in this movie were very believable. I was sucked right in from the start and since it played over a few days, I couldn't wait for the next "episode". Gripping movie. With all the movies and shows out there with smut, swearing, and just plain garbage, this offered real substance. This was refreshing. It's too bad that Hollywood hasn't figured out what people really want to see. A gripping tale of an Arabian princess and a marine who fall in love and are forbidden to be together, only to find a way to do just that. Come on Hollywood! Give us more like this!