The setting for Disney's latest feature-length fairytale, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, is a mythical European country where everyone speaks English with an accent via Britain, France and Brooklyn.

In the film's prequel, an American teenager (Anne Hathaway) discovers she is in fact Princess Mia of Genovia.

The story begins with Mia graduating from college and being whisked away to her adopted home, which her grandmother, Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews), hopes she will govern one day.

As in the prequel, much of the comedy involves the free-spirited Mia working in gentle harmony with her proper grandmother.

Because this ugly duckling has already blossomed into a swan, however, the plot this time hinges on some minor palace intrigue and romances with two blow-dried suitors.

In between the cooing and wooing, and product placements, Ms Hathaway and Ms Andrews flash smiles of such wattage they could carry any city through a power cut.

Built on vintage and newly-minted clichs, this is a classic storybook scenario with self-help uplift.

After undergoing a radical makeover in the first movie, Anne has morphed into a self-possessed young woman.

True, her sexuality comes across as weirdly underdeveloped, closer to that of the pre-adolescents who constitute this film's PG-rated core audience, than that of most typical school graduates.

But that's in keeping with the character, whose appeal is largely based on being plain in every respect.

Also released this week is White Chicks, a comedy starring the brothers Marlon and Shawn Wayans as African-American FBI agents who disguise themselves as dippy white female socialites for a weekend in the Hamptons.

Most movies require some suspension of disbelief, but this demands a lot more than that.

Directed by Garry Marshall; Cert. PG; starring Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews; duration 120 minutes