Preteen princess of predictability

Absolutely the best Hilary Duff movie since the last Hilary Duff movie, “A Cinderella Story” actually does deliver the preteen goods, mixing romance, comedy, cliches and classic turns in precisely the proportions guaranteed to leave 10-year-old girls beaming.

This time Duff plays Sam, a young denizen of the San Fernando Valley. The biggest stretch the movie makes is that it expects us to believe that Sam is a sort of ugly duckling and nobody at her high school or in her life has noticed she looks like, well, Hilary Duff.

Sam’s sainted daddy died in an earthquake (how California) right after marrying her evil stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge) and adding her stepmother’s two evil daughters to the clan. When Dad dies, the stepmother inherits the family diner and sets Duff to work in it.

Prince Charming is an e-mail buddy. Unbeknownst to her, he’s actually the ultra-popular football quarterback Austin (Chad Michael Murray of “Freaky Friday”). And after they meet in standard mystery style, she leaves behind her cell phone, not her shoe.

The movie bounces back and forth between modern high school standards – witchy cheerleaders, dumb jocks, oppressive parents, geeks and punks – and its fairy tale structure. Nothing’s particularly risky or original, but neither is anything all that repulsive. It chugs along balancing Duff’s bubbly personality and Coolidge’s broad-faced meanness and when it’s done everybody lives happily ever after.