What makes this holiday season so great? The release of “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding.”
Netflix debuted “A Christmas Prince” during the 2017 holiday season, to great acclaim. Netflix tweeted about viewers who watched the movie every day for more than two weeks. This year on November 30, Netflix premiered the sequel, “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding.”
In the first movie, Amber (Rose McIver) and Aldovia’s Prince Richard (Ben Lamb) fall in love as Amber, a young journalist, tries to get information on the soon-to-be king for an article. Netflix’s second installment of “A Christmas Prince” begins with the couple’s announcement of their royal engagement.
In the first five minutes, Amber is overwhelmed by paparazzi, which is shocking as Aldovia is a tiny, irrelevant country. But then again, not a lot in this movie makes sense.
“A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding” uses clichés like people use air to breathe and it’s exhausting. Rather than delivering a romantic comedy that holds some kind of plot, the movie is a combination of various clichés that are threaded together. For instance, Amber’s father is a walking cliché with his terrible faux-Jersey accent and the awkward way he flirts with the royal cook.
However, the sequel is meant to be a comedy, so perhaps the sheer cringey-ness of the movie is intended to have a comedic effect. There is a lot of funny over-exaggeration in the movie, like when Simon, Richard’s evil-turned-good cousin, first walks into the castle and the Queen, Richard and Amber all make horrified faces while the camera zooms in on each of them. The melodramatic actions in the movie do make for some good laughs as it makes a viewer equally both uncomfortable and glad to not be in the cast of the movie.
The one thing that makes “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding” bearable is the Christmas decorations. The Aldovian castle is entirely covered in Christmas lights and huge Christmas trees that are decorated with glass ornaments, and twinkly white lights are in every room in the castle, including Amber’s bedroom. To add to the Christmas cheer, Amber and Richard continuously talk about the holiday season, and there’s even a scene in which the couple decorates Christmas cookies.
Aside from all the Christmas chaos, the movie follows Amber as she lets people berate her for not being royal enough or knowing the traditional royal wedding protocol. Amber’s royal pains actually add to the plot of the movie as we see Amber grow as a person. Despite all the drama Amber and Richard experience, the couple remains strong and helps keep that flicker of hope for true love alive in viewers.
All in all, the movie is fun to watch. It’s messy and cheesy, but it’s light-hearted and funny. There’s not a lot to “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding,” but that adds to the movie’s charm. It’s a movie that you know will have a happy ending, and it’s full of holiday fun. In fact, the movie is more of an ode to Christmas than anything else. If you’re looking for something breezy and cute to lift your spirits during finals season, “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding” is definitely the movie for you.
“A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding”
Rating: PG
Running Time: 92 minutes
Score: 3/5 stars
