The thoroughly unremarkable Chasing Liberty makes it three negligible movies in a row for Mandy Moore, the pouty pop starlet with designs on crossover success. But at least this time out she's allowed to have some fun — neither A Walk to Remember, in which she played a cancer-stricken Baptist, nor the similarly downbeat family drama How to Deal, offered her much in the way of levity.

This time out, she plays Anna Foster, a well-scrubbed society girl whose father (Mark Harmon) happens to be the president of the United States. As such, she doesn't get out much, since her few attempts at dating are scuttled by the conspicuous presence of her bodyguards. Sad, overprotected Anna just wants to live, damn it, so when her family is summoned to Prague for diplomatic business, she takes the opportunity to dress down, act out, and give the slip to her security detail. But Daddy is one step ahead: he's commissioned an undercover operative, Ben (Matthew Goode), to spirit Anna around Europe while maintaining her illusions of independence.

That the agent happens to be a hottie with a British accent is a given, as are the tortuous misunderstandings attending their heavy petting. (He likes her, but can't tell her he's on duty; she thinks she's being rejected.) Their budding relationship is overshadowed by the flirty bickering of real actors Jeremy Piven and Annabella Sciorra, slumming it as a pair of Secret Service agents trailing the pair through Europe. They believe that Ben has gone AWOL and has secretly married Anna.

It's a good thing they're in the movie, because Anna and Ben become boring despite their exquisitely matched cheekbones, mostly due to Moore's oddly pitched performance. Moore looks terrific, but she can't quite navigate the dramatic terrain between adolescent empowerment and shallow brattiness. What's more, the script's attempts at giving her an edge — drinking underage, swimming nude in a Czech harbour and blithely (and nakedly) offering up her virginity after an extended first date — come off as confusing teases in a PG-rated film.

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