2017
Director: Alex Zamm
Writers: Karen Schaler and Nate Atkins
Stars: Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, Honor Kneafsly and Lovelace Akpojaro as "Nigel"
See this movie if...you're a commoner, but you've always dreamed of meeting your prince or if you enjoy a light romance with just enough humour to be entertaining.
Don't see this movie if...you can't see Rose McIver as anything but her zombie character in iZombie and expect her to start eating the prince's face or you like your holiday movies more funny or exciting.
A Holiday Prince stars Rose McIver as Amber, a junior editor of a gossip magazine who dreams of being a real writer. She spends her time cleaning up the mess of those real writers who don't give a crap about real journalism. Don’t worry, Amber, you’ll get there one day. Luckily, when Amber’s boss needs someone to cover the royals in Aldovia, all those real journalists are too busy being not giving a flying flip and Amber's boss sends her.
So Amber takes her plucky American attitude to Aldovia to get the story on the Aldovian royals and the playboy prince. Will he abdicate and continue his playboy ways? Will he finally accept the throne and rule Aldovia? Will he use the Aldovia’s vast riches to create a weapon to allow him to rule the whole galaxy? “Pick three m’lord!”
Do you think that every young journalist or nanny who goes to some lesser known country for a job believes they will hook-up with the hot prince or princess? After all, why wouldn't the stuffy proper prince, who has been trained his whole life to be better than everyone else, fall in love with the random commoner? And why wouldn't the king and queen say, "Oh we didn't like you at first, but your plucky American attitude and witty sarcasm has won us over. Welcome to the royal family." Who am I to talk, I enjoy movies about a guy who gets bit by a radioactive spider and develops the ability to climb walls.
After the prince is a no-show at the press conference, Amber decides she can’t go back to America empty handed and uses her plucky American attitude to find another way to get her story. She sneaks into the castle and is found by the smartest security guard in the history of royal families who assumes that because Amber is a plucky American, she must be the new tutor for Princess Emily (Honor Kneafsey). The security guard then presents Amber to head of house who also accepts Amber’s ploy.
Nearly every movie has at least one “suspend your disbelief” moment. For example, the movie Die Hard asks you to accept that curling your toes on carpet will relieve jet lag. If you go for that then “Yippee ki yay, MF”, all is good and John McCain kicking ass is all cool to you. If you don’t accept that absolutely stupid idea then you might feel that smashing through glass windows and shooting his way through a team of Germans may be too much for someone who just traveled across the country.
I believe that any security guard and head of house worth their salt would have realized that Amber is not indeed the new tutor, but in this movie I choose to accept it. Should it have happened? No. Could it have happened? Maybe. Does it bother me that it happened? Not really. This is a holiday romance movie, let’s move on.
Even though Amber doesn’t get math, she endears herself to Princess Emily, Queen Helena (Alice Krige) and Prince Richard (Ben Lamb). I mean, she only has a journalism degree, which we all know is the worst of all the degrees. Remember the adage, those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can’t do or teach, write reviews about other people and eventually end up turning tricks for cheap espresso in a poetry bar in New Jersey.
Amber is able to get to know the prince and lots of juicy gossip, including the fact that Prince Richard has a rival for the throne, Simon (Theo Devaney). Will Amber's secret be revealed? Will the prince accept the throne? Will Amber get her story and find love? Will the prince recover the plans to his secret weapon from the rebels? Will we ever learn where Aldovia is? Maybe it's close to Genovia or Wakanda or Hungry. Oh, sure Hungry is a country. I go there all the time. Most days I visit around 3:30 pm. It's on my way to Snickersland and Pepsistan.
For all my snarky comments, I actually enjoyed this movie. The story was fairly predictable, but enjoyable. I’m not a fan of straight romance stories, but I am a sucker for a good rom-com or rom-action. This movie doesn’t fit either of those, but it has elements of each. It has some humour and it has some intrigue and it has an appropriate amount of sweetness.
I found that I liked the characters in this movie and this is often the downfall of a holiday romance. Other movie genres often get by on fast cars, explosions and humour. Characters in these movies may be wooden (Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious), boring (Mark Walberg in Transformers) or downright stupid (nearly every character in the Star Wars prequels), but these movies succeed by driving fast cars into an explosion then cracking a joke.
The one thing that was missing from this movie was Christmas. Yes, there was snow and decorations and presents and yes, it happened around the holidays, but there is no baby Jesus, Santa, jolly elves, drunk reindeer, new stars in the night sky or snow tornadoes with angry snowmen inside. But I’m was OK with that. The movie was good enough that I enjoyed it anyway.
I liked A Christmas Prince and I think it hit all the right points for a good holiday romance. If you are looking for a holiday movie that includes Christmas magic...you should still probably look somewhere else.
If you want a movie that has good characters, decent story and a prince...then you should watch A Christmas Prince.
*4 - The number of times I said the word plucky in this review. And, yes, Amber is that plucky.
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