Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia
“A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding” dropped on Netflix on Nov. 18, and the American film directed by John Schultz. The film is a sequel of the 2017 movie “A Christmas Prince” which shares the story of how Prince Richard (Ben Lamb) and Amber (Rose McIver) became engaged.
In the first film, the audience learns that Amber is a magazine journalist that is sent to the fictional country of Aldovia to get a story on Prince Richard, who is taking the throne after his father’s death. She sneaks her way into his home pretending to be his sister’s tutor and while residing there, the two fall in love. Of course, at the end, as in every romantic movie, he asks for her hand in marriage.
A year after the new king proposed to Amber, the two are seen traveling the world and are incredibly happy.
Again, Amber was just an ordinary girl from New York who was highly focused on her career, but now she is now on the cover of magazines and making special appearances on television. However, she has a bit of a tough time adjusting to the life of a queen. The filmmakers decided to signify that Amber isn’t the average queen by showing her wearing Converse to the wedding.
But upon the big day, Amber feels like her special day isn’t exactly hers. She has a dramatic fashion designer controlling her wedding. Anytime he makes an appearance on screen, the film falls out of place. It seems as if the filmmakers threw his character in for comic relief, but instead he comes off obnoxious.
Aldovia faces a financial crisis and King Richard is quite busy with meetings and conferences regarding the problem. In the meantime, the soon-to-be bride worries about her wedding. However, she doesn’t have a voice or an opinion regarding the choices she wants to make due to strict royal demands – being a queen is harder than she thought.
King Richard doesn’t necessarily support her in these moments, with his main focus being his country. This makes her rethink the idea of becoming queen, but predictably, he rescues her and reminds her of the love they share.
Romantic Christmas movies usually share the same plot – the film revolves around a king and queen, where the queen gets upset at her husband and vanishes. Then of course, the king says, “I love you,” and they’re back on track to happily ever after.
With this genre becoming more predictable, you can easily point out exactly what’s going to happen next whilst watching. There’s always one character who tries to break up the main relationship or steal something that is essential to the family.
The sequels should stop here. Sometimes films are only good once before it loses interest.
3 stars
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