Top Five… Worst Movie Princes
All eyes are on Prince William this week as he suits up for his… wedding? Really? Is that what everyone is excited about? Back in the day, the only suits princes put on were suits of armour as they rode out to battle invaders/dragons/evil uncles, while fiancées could only be gained by rescuing them from castles, towers and dungeons, not lectures at uni. In fairness though, William is not the only rubbish prince out there…
5. Prince Caspian
Rightful heir to the throne of Narnia, Caspian X’s dad obviously had an evil little brother who fancied the crown for himself. But instead of standing up to his nasty uncle, Caspian calls in his much tougher mates: four posh snot-nosed British schoolchildren. If you need a little girl called Lucy Pevensie to fight your battles for you, you are probably not fit for running a country. Prince Capri Sun made a meal of reclaiming Narnia, even though he had an omnipotent lion god on his side.
4. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
If you’re going to call yourself a prince in the sub-title of your own movie, it might help if you actually are one. So straight off the bat, Kevin Costner’s interpretation of Sherwood Forest’s finest loses marks. It also helps if a cinematic prince speaks like royalty, as opposed to say, a cattle rancher from the Wild West. And no self-respecting prince would have Christian ‘Yes, I’m still doing my Jack Nicholson impression even though I’m in the English countryside’ Slater as his sidekick. Hans Gruber made a great Sheriff of Nottingham though.
3. Prince John
Staying on the Robin Hood theme, we turn to the 1973 Disney animated classic for this prince, who is more likely to curl up on his bed with his multiple bags of money than do anything charming. Don’t let his lionly appearance fool you, this prince is as cowardly as the tax policy he introduces to persecute the various roosters, bunnies and mice running around Nottingham wearing clothes and being voiced by Americans from the Deep South. So that’s why Costner thought everyone in Sherwood spoke with a southern drawl. This Prince John has two talents: calling for his ‘Mom’ (yep, this really is Nottingham, USA) and sucking on his thumb. Too late to be known as John The First, he’s sure to be known as John The Worst.
2. Hamlet
It doesn’t matter if you are Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh or even Laurence Olivier, you can’t make this Danish prince not rotten. Despite knowing that his evil uncle Claudius bumped his dad off so he could bump uglies with his mam and bump his own name up to the top of the heir list (he was told so by a ghost that went bump in the night), Hamlet does nothing but mope around for the entire play, talking to skulls and soliloquising with himself all day. It’s not until absolutely everybody else in the entire castle has been killed – including himself – as a result of his procrastination does he finally decide to man up and kill his uncle. Waster.
1. Prince Charming
Our list of princes may have had their flaws, but this serial adulterer is just an a**hole. Unsatisfied with bagging one princess in Snow White, he went on to make his way through most of Disney’s extensive catalogue, counting Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella among his high profile notches, with countless other fairy tale indiscretions besides. For someone who gets so much use out of them, his balls are never evident, as he usually just turns up at the end of the story after his string of women have already faced down the bad guys on their own. He’s also a bit of a sicko, preying on Sleeping Beauty when she was in a coma, and Snow White when she was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
WHO DO YOU THINK ARE THE WORST MOVIE PRINCES?
Ross v Ross 
April 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Awesome list! I’d like to point out that Caspian’s accent changed in the films as well. First he had an almost Spanish accent, then he went right back to being plain old British.
April 29, 2011 at 7:11 am
I don’t think that Prince Charming should be number one….The comment implies that the same exact Prince Charming was used throughout all of the Disney Princess films, which is not true. Hello, Prince Phillip (Sleeping Beauty), Prince Eric (The Little Mermaid)?? The only once I might be able to see as an “adulterer” is the Prince from both Snow White and Cinderella. They look an awful lot alike, don’t they?
April 29, 2011 at 8:38 am
Prince Charming wasn’t in sleeping Beauty- he was Philip!
April 29, 2011 at 11:27 am
People, people! Don’t be fooled! Does anyone know what ‘phillip’ and ‘eric’s surnames were? Giving a different first name is hardly the oldest trick in the cheaters handbook!
April 29, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Humperdinck! Humperdinck! Humperdinck! (The Princess Bride)
April 29, 2011 at 2:02 pm
[…] Top Five Worst Movie Princes from Ross v. Ross […]
April 29, 2011 at 2:08 pm
No hate for Prince Humperdink?!? He wanted to marry the most beautiful woman in the world just so he could kill her, in order to blame her death on the next country over and thus start a war! While he’s having her boyfriend tortured in the basement! What’s worse than that?
April 29, 2011 at 2:20 pm
The worst cinematic Prince is Prince (or the artist formerly known as). A real prince doesn’t wear that much makeup or have a jheri curl.
April 29, 2011 at 2:41 pm
The real-life Price John was considered such a rotter that the name was retired for being unlucky – no John the Second!
April 29, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Ahah, too funny! The Disney Princes really didn’t have much to do back then did they?
Say what you will about Prince Caspian but my oh my, he’s certainly got such a dashing smile. I won’t mind fighting battles alongside him 😉
April 29, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Clearly you have not read Hamlet, because you have, then you would know that Hamlet does spend the play sulking. He spends the play very carefully planning out all of his motives and 1) Find out if the ghost is telling the truth and 2) Plan the perfect way of offing Claudius.
HIs “moping” as you would call it is his “antic disposition” that he puts on to fool everyone in order to find out the truth. Even his most famous “To be or not to be” has nothing to do with the play and it can be argued that it is instead Hamlet tricking both Claudius and Polonius (who are listening behind the curtain) to help further his antic disposition. Once he finally does act, it is quite calculated and Hamlet knows what he is doing.
So yah, I’d say he’s a pretty bad ass prince. Perhaps you should replace him with Prince Humperdink.
April 29, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Thadeous from Your Highness should be #1. All he ever does is have sex and get high.
April 29, 2011 at 4:46 pm
For all the Princess Bride fans: My name is Indigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.
April 29, 2011 at 5:31 pm
No Prince Humperdinck?! Inconceivable!
April 29, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Hey, where’ is Prince Valium from Space Balls?
April 29, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I recommend “The Lion in Winter” for a better “bad” portrayal of Prince John. All the Royals come of bad in that movie.
April 29, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Correction: Prince Charming was only in Snow White and Cinderella, the prince featured in Sleeping Beauty was Prince Philip and was the only one to fight a dragon.
April 29, 2011 at 9:37 pm
I have so read it! Well, my teacher read it at me in school. I must respectively disagree though vickie, hamlet is the most famous literary procrastinator ever, he knew exactly what was going on but was too much of a wuss to do anything about it. Plus I don’t think claudius was behind that curtain, just earwig polonius!
April 29, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Haven’t seen Your Highness Buscemi. Don’t think I ever will…
April 29, 2011 at 9:43 pm
I’m telling ya, his surname was charming. Check the fairy tale before Disney! Plus that dragon fight was all staged to impress the ladies
April 29, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Congrats on making the hit list guys!
April 29, 2011 at 11:16 pm
cheers Castor. cheers everyone for the comments. for once though Im on Ross McD’s side – those Disney princes must have been the one guy. How else would he have known every time where and when to prey on dead/comatose chicks?
It can be a dilemma though sometimes choosing between princes – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC-KaKAmmEY
April 29, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Well, if you have ever seen the Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods” you know that there were only two Princes, who romanced Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Cinderella. In one musical number, one of them says that he was raised to be “charming, not sincere”.
April 30, 2011 at 1:44 am
Have you noticed that all the Prince Charmings in the Disney movies seem devoid of personality? Their goal is always the same (the admiration of the swoony chicks), they speak eloquently enough but don’t really say anything particularly significant EVER, oh yeah, and they sing.
BTW seriously liked your blog er post er thing. I’m new to this… X_X
April 30, 2011 at 3:27 am
Blah blah blah accent accent blah blah blah accent.
I’m cool, funny and edgy now, right?
April 30, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Graffiti Bridge had a fairly awful Prince in it, but maybe that’s stretching this topic a bit far…
April 30, 2011 at 7:18 pm
One name you left out,dare I say it?
Humperdink
Humperdink?
Humperdink, Humperdink,Humperdink,Humperdink!
May 1, 2011 at 2:06 am
yeah…never did understand why maid marion was a fox,and the prince was a lion in the disney version of things…also,would be nice if they actually settled on a time period for clothes..i h ate how they combine something from the 13th century and the 16th century..it’s like a bad renaissance faire,yo…
May 1, 2011 at 2:30 am
really prince caspian? thats the whole point of the movie the kids are legends and they werent kids in the legend if you actually paid attention they grew up in the first movie then they left. also humperdick ftw he should be #1 rodents of unusual size? i dont believe they exist
May 1, 2011 at 3:18 am
How DARE you put in the best Robin Hood of all: Kevin Costner. He is the best one yet. Loved the movie, don’t care about any flaws. It’s fun, adventurous, romantic, and the star is the reason for it all. I don’t care about your other choices. PLEEEEEZE
May 1, 2011 at 3:40 am
LOL, love this! But seriously… where’s Humperdink?
May 1, 2011 at 9:51 am
Hey: another Ross! You could get a job here!
May 1, 2011 at 9:54 am
Man, lot of love/hate for Humperdink!
To be fair, Humperdink was pretty good at being a pretty bad prince – The guys on the list, well, they’re just crap princes
May 1, 2011 at 10:39 am
@Kevin Klawitter… quit revealing the formula for our blog posts!
@mcguinnr… Graffiti Bridge lol
May 1, 2011 at 11:09 am
Snow White’s prince doesn’t have a name. He’s just the Prince.
May 1, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Regarding Charming: Has anyone read the comicbook “Fables” by Bill Willingham? Prince Charming states in it that he is the only “Prince Charming” from all of the Fables. He states that “charm” is his power: charm women into bed, charm women into giving him money, charm people into voting him into power (by getting everyone to vote him into being Mayor of Fabletown). He did marry Snow White and Cinderella, he also charmed into be Snow White’s sister Rose Red into bed, as well as a bunch of other ladies. But that’s where his power ends. In the morning they wake-up and realize he’s just a very bad date and everthing turns to crap.
Also, I clicked on this list to see if Prince Humperdink made the list; and am now leaving very disappointed.
May 1, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Not only is Humperdink the crappiest of them all, he’s also a lousy poker player. One good bluff and he’ll fold on a straight flush.
P.S. – The Princess Bride predicted the Oscars by 20 years. You fire Billy Crystal and you shall pay the consequences!
May 1, 2011 at 5:05 pm
“Prince Capri Sun” … yes!
May 1, 2011 at 9:58 pm
@Vickie: Hamlet was nothing if not a ditherer. Hello! “To be or not to be,” anyone? Duh.
And it was just Polonius behind the curtain. You do yourself no favors getting your Shakespeare knowledge from Cliffs Notes.
@SWS: WTG with the “Lion in Winter” shout-out. Ross could have added princes Richard and Geoffrey to the list, along with Prince Humperdink, and then would have needed only two more to make a Ten Worst Movie Princes list.
@Bunny: I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who noticed. Or cared.
@Carolynn: Costner knew he stunk in that movie. He actively lobbied to have Rickman’s screen time cut because he knew he was being upstaged by the (far) superior actor.
@Ross McD: I have to agree with everyone else. You blew it big time by omitting Prince Humperdink. Maybe next time.
May 1, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Sleeping Beauty’s Prince rocks. He’s the only Disney prince to kick evil’s butt. Sleeping Beauty doesn’t have to face the bad guy on her own; Prince Philip does it for her and then he kisses her and awakens the whole kingdom.
May 7, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I didn’t see Prince Charming coming at the end! Which resulted on me choing on my drink from laughter. You nearly killed me McG.
May 7, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Don’t worry Katie, I already killed him. For taking credit for my work…
May 7, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Whoops! Can we call that one a typo? I should know better :S