The Reluctant Royal

I have to say this is one of the best Hallmark movies I've seen in a long time. I had to double check that it actually was a Hallmark movie. Loveable characters, some well placed humour- it's really enjoyable. Andrew Walker is excellent in this and yes, he really does his own singing. It's not a musical but there are a couple of short songs in it Love the story line.

In so many of these movies the supposedly romantic closed mouth kiss in the big finale is so unnatural I sometimes wonder if the actors can tolerate each. Not the case in this one. What a pleasant change to the phony end in many others.

Great show and the acting makes all the difference. Andrew Walker makes all the difference in the world to the quality of this movie.

I did not like the tone of this story. The commoner coming in and saving the day might have been a nice story. And he does keep triumphing in almost everything he does including showing up an experienced horseman even though his only riding experience seems to only be riding a mechanical bull. That was a little too much.

The son of a Duke is automatically a Lord and I think has the title Marquess. Yet the cousin constantly insults him. Would he get away with that in front of a group?

The story goes about how you'd expect. The cousin who is the alternate heir becomes the villain. Two relationships develop. The potential romance is rushed because of everything else going on. The story makes a point of a potential problem there and also rushes dealing with it.

The acting is OK, but not great. The dialogue is mostly bland with maybe one or two good lines.

Like the movie, The Royal We, from the previous week on Hallmark, there is an epilogue where the three royal movies of March 2025 are tied together. It was clever in that one, but seemed forced and abrupt in this one.

I pretty much steer clear of Hallmark these days. Most of it is highly obnoxious. But for reasons unknown I gave this one a shot. And it wasn't bad. It wasn't great but it managed to be cute enough reminiscent of some of the cute but not so great old Hallmark fare.

Andrew Walker did well of a bit awkward at first playing a 38 year old man who kinda acted like a 22 year old kid. But he got better enough as it went along. The actress who played Prudence had to grow on me but when she did in liked her well enough.

The story was simplistic and predictable but that's not always a problem. The villains were cartoonish and unnecessary. A conflict not needed since the others could've been filled out.

I won't call it a must see but I wouldn't warn anyone off either. Take it or leave it. Hallmark has much worse to offer these days.

The promos sounded like a lower-scale, lower-budgeted rehash of the premise of KING RALPH with John Goodman, Peter O'Toole and John Hurt; I soon realized this wasn't quite the case or presented as that kind of LOL comedy, but I still got a lot more LOL moments than I expected. A large part of that is that I've been calling the Greater Philadelphia Metro Region home for the past 55 years and have many friends who are from South Philly or are first-generation children of transplants from South Philly to the South Jersey suburbs where I grew up. If there's going to be a culture clash between British aristocracy and an American-born heir, I can't think of a character that would bring sparks to that clash, more than Ralph the Las Vegas lounge singer, than a working stiff from South Philly. Small references to South Philly from protagonist Johnny in reply to his snooty cousin Allistair brought the biggest laughs such as the one after Allistair identifies himself as being of "Winshere, north of Devon". (I have to give kudos to Andrew Walker for NOT trying too hard to do a South Philly accent. Most actors not native to the PA-NJ-NY region end up not getting the subtle differences between the accents that are most concentrated, and end up overdoing it AND coming off with a Brooklyn or Bayonne NJ accent instead!)

The characters are engaging and most are likeable, and their actors have excellent chemistry. That between Andrew Walker (Johnny) and Emilie de Ravin (Prudence) is particularly involving. The characters are dynamic in the true old high school Language Arts class sense of changing due to the events of the story. Many of the "snooty" aristocratic characters end up not being as stereotypical as initially presented.

Just a little note here. Some of the reviewers mention the ridiculous notion that Johnny supposedly got his horseback riding skills to help another rider in distress by being the mechanical bull riding champion at his South Philly bar. Just thought I'd mention that the Pennsylvania Army National Guard has an Armored Cavalry squadron in Philadelphia that has a rather elaborate ceremonial horse team; if the writers had been aware of that fact, they could have made Johnny a former enlisted member (say a tank mechanic) of that unit and have gotten his riding skills with that horse team, a much more plausible/credible explanation. (I myself organized a much smaller, lower-budgeted and less elaborate horse team within my old New Jersey National Guard unit.)

I'll say this is one of the best Working Class American amid stuffy European Royalty movies Hallmark has ever done. One star off for the silly mechanical bull story. (And do I mean BULL!)

This is by far the best movie of the year for HallMark (HM) ANDREW walker again does it again. He did an incredible job and his partner have excellent screen chemistry. The supporting cast were wonderful and I wish there was more time to develope them. I wouldn't mind see this as a series. HM is getting back to thier roots with this movie.

I like the location and the scenes of the country side was a nice touch. The villains as usual were to predictable for my only cretinism. Andrew Walker have developed into a very actor and gives HM almost a guarantee of a good movie. All in all a def 10 and look forward to more movies with this one of scripts and acting.