Photo Credit: Markus Spiske, Unsplash
“A Christmas Prince” is a stereotypical holiday movie that came out in 2017 and is the first in a trilogy of holiday-themed movies. Each revolves around the same characters and chronicles their lives together.
The movie starts with the main character, Amber, being asked to cover a story about the upcoming coronation of Prince Richard, a prince who does not want the throne, in the country of Aldovia. Amber attends a press conference that is canceled by the prince, aggravating all of the journalists. Unwilling to go home empty-handed, Amber sneaks into the castle, where she is mistaken for the new nanny to the princess.
Amber goes along with the ruse and tries to dig up information for her article while pretending to be the nanny. Through this, Amber grows closer to not only the princess, but also the prince, who becomes a clear love interest. The movie is a long haul to the coronation day with various hijinks occurring throughout. Count Simon is second in line to the throne and attempts to dig up information to kick Richard out of the line of succession so he can become king. Amber and the prince eventually form a romantic relationship, which fuels the attempt to take the throne.
Eventually, after Amber has formed many new relationships within the royal family, her true identity is revealed to both them and the public. This revelation comes with the additional reveal that Prince Richard is adopted and therefore not truly in the line of succession. She is quickly kicked out of the castle and asked to leave the country since Count Simon will soon be crowned king. While sitting at the airport, Amber has a realization about a law that was passed by the late king to add Richard back into the line of succession. Amber makes it to the castle just in time to stop the coronation, goes home, quits her job, and begins working at a diner. King Richard comes to America to tell her he loves her.
Overall, the movie was a basic and bland mass produced Christmas movie. The movie spent too much time unfocused on what it wanted to do. At the same time, it didn’t feel much like a Christmas movie at all. While the setting was based on a snowy castle in a winter wonderland, it failed to incorporate elements of Christmas cheer that most watchers search for during the holiday season.
While generic and stereotypical, the movie did include a few characters and plot schemes that were interesting to follow throughout the duration of the storyline. Prince Richard’s sister, Emily, proves to be a funny and witty character while causing important twists to Amber’s stay at the castle. She provides elements of sentimentality and humor to an otherwise unexciting Christmas story. As an at-first uptight sibling of the Prince, she ends up letting her guard down and helping Amber navigate the truth about the royal family, even after discovering her true identity.
The ending of the movie pushed too much plot into a small segment of the movie. The plot involving Prince Richard being adopted felt rushed and squeezed into a story that would have panned out the same way without the plot twist. Since it was established that Prince Richard did not want to take the throne in the first place, it would make sense for him to give up his place in the line of succession, therefore negating the need for the adoption plotline.
In the end, “A Christmas Prince” is a bland love story that holds all the markers of a budget Christmas movie. It tries to push too many tropes into a small 2-hour window, making the movie feel rushed, and has too many fringe plotlines that do not matter to the ending of the movie.
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