Joey King goes from "The Kissing Booth" to killing machine in "The Princess," an action-packed and blood-splattered but braindead R-rated fairy tale that proves that all the ass-kicking in the world doesn't matter if you don't care about who's doing the kicking.
That's the 22-year-old King, who is badly miscast as a limber brawler in this violent action fantasy, which has a body count as high as "John Wick's." Which begs the question, who is this movie for? It's for everyone who wanted "Rapunzel" but with way more blood, or who was waiting for Drew Barrymore to go all "Kill Bill" in "Ever After." Please, don't all raise your hands at once.
King stars as, well, the Princess, the daughter of a king in an unnamed setting in an unspecified era (think of it generically as "Game of Thrones" time and move on) who is locked up at the top of a castle as Julius (Dominic Cooper), the man she left at the altar, attempts to overthrow her father's kingdom. The Princess, who we learn in flashback is a trained fighter, must battle her way down the castle tower and square off against all sorts of faceless foes along the way, rending the story somewhat of a video game staged geographically in reverse.
