the audience applauded

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Gotta say, I love this movie, the only U certificate film I own on DVD. Originally watched it because I was the world's biggest Buffy fan and adored Michelle Tractenberg but it's so much more than that. A sensitive tale of growing up and defying your parent's expectations whilst still loving them (both Michelle's and Hayden Pantierre's) it grows on you every time you watch it. What wins me over to it is the maturity of the story, there is no baddie, not even Zoe Bloch or Kim Cattrall's character, everyone's motivations and actions are totally understandable and at the end you don't have an unrealistic fairytale finale but a hopeful yet pragmatic realisation of Casey's future and the sacrifices the life of a professional figure-skater will entail. Some good plotting, a story well told and some decent dialogue and acting all round. This essentially marks the end of Michelle's 'adorable moppet' Harriet the Spy/Inspector Gadget/Dawn Summers phase and after this we have her playing more adult characters like pop princess Celeste on 'Six Feet Under' and uber-bitch Georgina on 'Gossip Girl'. In honesty she's a little too old for the part, both she and a pre-Heroes Hayden are already looking more 'Playmate of the Year' than teenage figure skaters in this film. From now on both actresses deliberately choose more mature, adult roles but this is a nice send-off for their teenage characters phase. Best line, Tiffany, concerning the advantages of not being a professional figure skater; "And you can eat bread, buckets and buckets and of bread!"So if you want a well acted, not too twee Disney film told with humour, sensitivity, realism and charm this is the film for you. After an arduous and trying day at work dealing with the strife and compromises of the adult world just put this on and I guarantee you'll feel better. And my six year old niece loves just as much as I do at 38 years old. A timeless classic whose reputation will only grow with repeated Christmas showings and no mistake.

As a figure skater I find this movie incredibly insulting. No matter how much "natural talent" a person has, it is impossible for someone to become that good of a skater in such a short period of time, especially someone her age in the movie. Not only that but there are multiple tests that a skater has to pass in order to compete at that level, and it's not like you can take the tests whenever you want, you have to wait until a test session to take them. Also there's no way she could have competed without her mother knowing, because as a minor you have to have your parent's consent in order to compete (unless of course she forger her mother's signature). Sure the message of the movie is nice, the dialogue is okay, and I like the main actors, but it's just so incredibly unrealistic. I'm 17 and have been skating since I was 7, and skated competitively from the age of 18-13. I spend countless hours training, and its incredibly insulting of Disney to make that portrays figure skating as being something any person with a good understanding of physics could be good at. And as a figure skater the most insulting thing you can tell me is that figure skating is easy. And it's because of movies like this, that people think that. So sure if you want a heart-warming mediocre movie then by all means go see Ice princess, but if you want to see a movie that is far more realistic about figure skating, I think you'll have better luck with Blades of Glory.

So Casey Carlyle thinks she knows a lot of physics, eh? Well baby... wake up and smell the hydrogen sulphide of newton's ass...because his belly just jerked when she made a statement that grossly violated the fundamental law of rotational physics. Recollect the time she video documented herself in the skating rink for the first time, hmmmmm... She said "When I tuck my arms in, the Moment of Inertia increases and I am able to spin faster". Hello!!! any physics student in the house? Tucking the arms in actually decreases the moment of inertia by virtue of which the angular speed increases thereby maintaining the angular momentum. What a poser, a disgrace to all physics lovers.Who knows how many such blunders she would have made. She is just lucky that all are not geeks.

Teen physics whiz (played by Michelle Trachtenberg, a Scarlett Johansson lookalike with a gorgeous crop of brunette hair) takes up ice-skating at the local rink as a means of studying kinetic energy--pretty soon, she's donning a leotard and performing in a pageant! The downside is, smart girls never get the guys--although a Mark Ruffalo lookalike who works at the rink just loves Trachtenberg's scientific babbling. Disney film for young girls hasn't a whiff of originality, with a bland sense of humor and snotty, slangy Lolita wanna-bes on the ice. As Trachtenberg's mom, Joan Cusack acts like she's ready for the Motion Picture Retirement Home, however Kim Cattrall's work as the hard-nosed skating coach isn't bad until the character is turned into a formula cutthroat. Très harsh! ** from ****