A Cinderella Story

Herald rating: *

Sam (Hilary Duff, aka the Disney Channel's manufactured starlet Lizzie McGuire) lives with her widowed dad in the San Fernando Valley. They are happy until he marries Fiona (Jennifer Coolidge), who extends the family by a couple of stepsisters.

Lightning strikes twice. Sam's dad dies in an earthquake and Fiona gets the lot, including Sam and his diner. Sam is - well, you should have got this from the title - condemned to scrubbing the diner floors, taking orders and dreaming that someday her Prince Charming will come.

Since this is the 2000-and-something version of the tale, she confides all this to her mystery email friend, who wants to meet her at the Halloween dance. Gosh, he's Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), the most popular boy in school, and Sam gets cold feet. Enough of this. Even the target audience of preteen girls will have figured this out, and figured that they are being exploited here.

There's a DVD full of extras - commentary, deleted scenes, screen tests, making-of ... even a video duet with Hilary and her little sister. Oh, no. This franchise will go on. And on. And ...

* DVD, video rental today