A Royal Christmas Engagement

Another generic royal movie ION seems to be making every year now. Sure we all know how it's going to end, but this one tells you right at the beginning just in case you had some doubts. Let's put in some average unknown actors and give them funny surnames like Luck, Holiday, or Charles for the prince. Then show bird's eye shots of Neuschwanstein Castle and Lake Bled (not sure why the second one was there besides it being pretty to look at) and some indoor scenes that could be shot pretty much anywhere. The prince wants to do something meaningful with his life, which in this case means giving advice about chocolate to a female marketer in New York while being incognito... And what's up with those sappy telenovela flashback montages? I've seen two ION movies recently, and they both had them. They even used the same song as in A Prince for Christmas/Small Town Prince in this movie. The engagement part was also totally out of place and seemed like it was there only for them to have something to put into the title behind the standard "Royal Christmas". Not the worst movie, but no aspiration for originality. It's just the same as all others.

A bad knock off of the movie "The Prince and Me" from 2004 but with a Christmas twist. Underdeveloped characters with such cheesy acting. The constant twinkle music in the background made it seem more like a cartoon like Tom & Jerry. Very far reaching to create drama in scenes were it just doesn't make sense. I feel bad for the actors and actresses getting stuck in a mediocre film.

Overused storyline made worse by having the lead narrate and give away the ending right at the beginning. It's not like as if anyone watching this don't already know how it's going to end (man gets woman / woman gets man), but the writers for some reason just had to confirm 2 minutes into the movie that we're getting that predictable ending.

There were some passable scenes throughout (when the dialogues were not awful), and the acting was actually ok, but the movie just felt too long at nearly 90 minutes. And some of the secondary characters were redundant and badly written.

This is one Christmas movie you should avoid for 2020. If you're bored and have nothing else to do, please call or facetime someone you haven't spoken to this year, feed your pet or spend that time looking up something better to watch. Do anything else but waste your time with this dud.

Just joking. Not the worst, but certainly not the best. Cringiness at its finest. Don't really get why they got engaged in the end when she clearly just saw him as a friend and nothing more. But hey, he's rich so I don't blame her.

Watched 'A Royal Christmas Engagement' with not the highest of expectations, fairly mixed actually. While loving Christmas for as long as can be remembered and having seen some surprisingly good Christmas films recently, films mixing Christmas and royalty have always varied with most ranging between mediocre and decent (with also some good and bad ones). The title sounded sweet but the concept sounded so been there, done that and flimsy.

The execution is even flimsier and actually turned out to be worse than expected, making for a right royal mess of a Christmas engagement (which turned out to not be much of one) and film. As much as it pains me to say it, as someone who is often generous-striving and who has always tried to see the good in the bad. With 'A Royal Christmas Engagement', it was actually quite hard to find any redeeming merits in a film with so many flaws and most of them awfully executed. Of all the films mixing Christmas and royalty, 'A Royal Engagement Engagement' for me is easily among the worst.

Only the beautiful looking castle stops the film from being a complete and utter disaster. And perhaps also an engaging turn from Mariah Robinson.

A beautiful looking castle however that was done no favours by the drab and poorly framed photography and the editing could have done with a tightening up. The direction is some of the most disorganised and leaden for any film seen recently and of all the recently seen Christmas films, clearly having no idea what to do with the story and the direction of the actors. The music is not particularly memorable and could have been used more subtly in placement and tone.

Furthermore one does expect cheese and schmaltz and allows some leeway, but both are so excessive quantity wise here (especially the cheese) that it was hard to take. And even more so when balanced so amateurishly. The story does absolutely nothing new with a premise that has been done to death and the formula is pretty much exactly what is expected. Emotionally, 'A Royal Christmas Engagement' falls completely flat and is barely existent. Everything is so disconnected and awkward and the charm and heart are just not there.

Neither is the character development, with the film overdoing it with the character flaws (especially Lauren's) and the characters don't grow. Neither does the inconsistently paced romance, that is under-utilised, barely there most of the time and then shows a little development abruptly for convenience sake. There is no tension, with the obligatory mis-understanding being so contrived and silly in execution, and the ending is too neat and rushed. Other than Robinson, the acting is really not good. Paige Bach has no warmth and plays her cold fish role too stiffly and coldly. James Nitti is even stiffer and overdoes the uptight-ness and awkwardness, coming over as too much of an introvert. There is no chemistry between them at all, which made everything after the deception discovery completely unbelievable.

Concluding, very bad and pretty much a mess. 2/10.