Movie of the Week: Christmas Prince

Alexa:  I originally picked a different movie for this week, but as soon as Netflix started actively trolling repeat viewers of “A Christmas Prince” on Twitter, I had to see what all the fuss was about. Objectively, this movie is garbage. But it’s snow-dusted garbage dipped in sugar and wrapped in a big red bow. It is tailor-made for watching curled up by the fire in cozy pajamas with a glass of chardonnay. Thus, I loved every minute of it. This movie has everything – picturesque European scenery and royal makeovers, whirlwind romances and conniving ex-girlfriends, “Beauty and the Beast”-style wolf showdowns and egregious journalism ethics violations. Yes, the acting is wooden and the writing is crap and the whole thing absolutely overflows with schmaltz. It checks all the stereotypical romance boxes. But the world is kind of a dark place right now in a lot of ways. And for 90 glorious minutes, “A Christmas Prince” encourages you to give in to the Hallmark-level silliness and bask in some lighthearted holiday cheer. Is that such a bad thing? Not everything has to be a masterpiece.

Joel: I mean, you can’t really judge this movie the way that you would a normal movie. It’s obvious in the first two minutes of the movie that this movie is going for the hallmark style made-for-tv Christmas movie. It’s just as much of a genre at this point as slasher films, or low budget sci-fi, or any other genre where the fans defend it by saying “It’s good because it’s bad.” So instead of comparing A Christmas Prince to the other movies that we’ve seen on Netflix this year, it’s at least more accurate to compare it to the level of quality you would usually expect on the Hallmark Channel during the twelfth month of the year.

A Christmas Prince has the feeling and the formula of a made-for-TV Christmas movie down to a science. They’ve got the young plucky girl, they’ve got the awkward moment for the lead to feel very fish out of water, they’ve got the miscommunication or the lie that was told that will come back to haunt the lead at about one hour into the movie (It’s a lie in this movie), they’ve got the actors who you’ve swear you’ve seen in something but you can’t put your finger on it without consulting the internet, they’ve got it all. This is cheesy Christmas romance in every way you could possibly expect it to be, and if it’s what you’re in the mood for then A Christmas Prince won’t let you down.

One note: If there is a flaw in this movie it’s the moment where it teases as makeover scene complete with a montage of trying on dresses but then skips straight to the next scene with the makeover already done and the final dress already selected. Yes, there are plenty of other plot holes in the movie but those are the type that are fun to point out, and can, if you’re in the mood, add to the charm of the movie. But that makeover scene was missed.

Chris: Oh man, this movie was a shiny nugget of poop. Sure, it’s light-hearted but the entire movie is just so bland and paint-by-the-numbers. If you had a formula of the cheesy, family-friendly, feel-good modern Christmas movie, Christmas Prince followed that generic formula at every step of the way. Even the jokes were humorous(?) but I wouldn’t exactly call them funny. Every joke made you go “hmm, yeah I see what they were going for” but not funny enough to actually make you laugh out loud. The plot felt like an outline of a script that never worked out the specifics and the characters were just as one dimensional. Why is the prince so nice but hates to the public to see this? Why does he allow the press paint him as a royal playboy when he’s apparently nothing close to that? Why is it so easy for someone to say they’re a tutor and walk right into the palace? Any modern government or royal building would have a billion checkpoints between the public and the important people. Even if you were the actual tutor, you wouldn’t get far at all without credentials. Also why is the Prime Minister crowning the next king? I can’t think of a single monarchy country that has the PM do that. Also does a coronation work like a wedding? Can anybody there just yell out a reason why someone can’t be king/queen? Also that birth certificate looked a lot like the generic certificate my job gave me when I hit my 6th anniversary. And that bracelet looked like it was bought for $13.63 at Walmart.

Jason: This is the candy corn of movies. It's the Dave Matthews Band of movies. Dare I say it's the Twilight of movies. It seems as though someone took the scripts for every chick flick in history, fed them all into some deep learning AI, and this is what it regurgitated. I don't even know where to begin with this drivel so let's just go. The dialogue is awful. No one talks like that. The setting is ridiculous. Why do movies like this keep coming up with nonsense tiny countries that are all just England but not England? The people all have British accents, the government is the same as the English with PM and Parliament and figurehead regency. Just set it in a real country! The main characters are bland and two-dimensional. I was already forgetting the beginning by the time it was over. The one thing that really stuck out to me was one particular establishing shot during the opening credits that was clearly in Chicago amidst all the images of New York. Seriously, go check it out. There is one shot of a building where the street is lined with Chicago flags. That's my takeaway from this movie. That's it. That and apparently, anyone can saddle, tack, mount, and ride a horse, completely alone, with literally no training whatsoever. Because reasons.

Alexa chose this one on a whim and change her pick like, three hours ago. It was going to be a documentary about Roger Ebert and I was planning on watching that with mild interest. But when she said she wanted us to do this thing instead, mostly out of morbid curiosity and a desire to hear our opinions, I decided to go ahead and get it over with. Like ripping off a band-aid. I wish Netflix had the option to watch movies at 1.5 speed like Youtube. That would have made this a lot faster, if not more bearable.

Everyone I have talked to about this film so far has agreed that it was a terrible movie but it has a certain sort of charm about it. I must have missed the charming part of the movie. I just thought it was a waste of time.