Hello & welcome khổng lồ A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, the Netflix holiday-movie follow-up to lớn A Christmas Prince with the perfect title. First, it’s got the first movie’s title right in the name, lest you forget that this is a sequel. Next, it tells you exactly what’s going to lớn happen: a royal wedding! But the best way this title establishes your expectations is by being immediately, wildly inaccurate! As our protagonist Amber will tell us in the very first moments of this movie, she is not marrying a prince. She’s marrying the king. He’s not even a Christmas prince anymore! What are you doing, movie?!


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Fade in on the story of our intrepid blogger queen-to-be, Amber Moore, who’s writing a blog with the SEO-unfriendly headline “Big event.” “Needless lớn say, it’s been a whirlwind year,” Amber tells us in voice-over. The movie flashes back through a montage of images, lượt thích the check-in sign at an airport and random hands stamping passports. At one point, Amber & Richard are holding hands in a park and appear to be frantically skipping somewhere?


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As Amber continues khổng lồ explain the challenges of their long-distance engagement, we see a mix of three magazine covers featuring her & Richard: DCi News, Cover, & Entertainment Social. Picturing the sweaty desperation of the graphics artist who needed to lớn mock-up a magazine cover but could only be bothered to think of the name Cover is what’s currently getting me through the day. In other Definitely a Plausible Media Outlet news, Amber also sits down for an interview with a late-night program called … Late Talk.

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After dropping a hefty expositional montage on her blog readers, Amber signs off with a reminder that she promises khổng lồ keep everyone updated on the events leading up to her wedding — “on Christmas Day, in Aldovia,” just in case you’d gotten this far inkhổng lồ the movie without knowing the premise. Enough with the fantastic kém chất lượng truyền thông outlets, let’s get this thing in gear!


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Amber và her father have traveled khổng lồ Aldovia for her wedding, & I have sầu many questions. She’s going lớn be the queen of this country, she’s flying in for her wedding, & she’s relying on sunglasses khổng lồ stay anonymous?! She thought she could just hop in on a regular commercial flight and no one would notice? This is Amber, the journalist queen! She was on the cover of Entertainment Social! Also, note: This actor is not the guy who played her original father. They recast Sweet Diner Owner Rudy as someone with a much chewier Thủ đô New York accent!

Obviously, the press finds Amber at the airport và she gets hustled into lớn the royal limos. But this does not happen before a snappy Indian guy denies her the cab she tries to hail. I wonder if we’ll see hyên again!


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Amber và her dad get lớn the castle, & NuRudy immediately takes up his position as uncouth American who marvels at the không tính tiền mints in the limo & is too physically affectionate. They also try khổng lồ lampshade Rudy’s recasting with a cutesy phản hồi from Emily about how he used to lớn have a goatee & looks different in person. You can keep selling, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, but I am not buying.


I see Richard Bevan Charlton, king of Aldovia, attended the Bachelor Contestant School of Writing Poems. After Amber reads this thẻ, Richard walks in và says, “It’s a limerick, of sorts.” IT IS NOT A LIMERICK. OF ANY SORT. It has only four lines! You can be as royal as you want, but you cannot just go around claiming a limeriông xã is anything other than a highly structured five-line poem in an anapestic meter with an AABBA rhyme scheme! I don’t think King Richard is very bright, you guys.


Amber gets a lecture from Mrs. Averill, the housekeeper who’s also apparently the Aldovian Head of Communications, about appropriate press behaviors for a future queen. Amber utters a phrase that I will probably need to put in my Twitter bio for a little while: “Blogs, that’s what I vì chưng for a living.”


Next we meet Sahil, royal wedding planner, who stole Amber’s cab back at the airport & who only speaks about himself in the third person. He’s planning Amber’s wedding as an “extravaganza of style và taste.” She will be required to lớn wear shoes that Sahil calls “Choo Choos,” which is a baffling line of dialogue. If he’s the fancy, stylish one, wouldn’t he know và care about Jimmy Choo’s real name? Also, why is he surrounded by fawning assistants who look lượt thích they were styled khổng lồ be minor characters from The Hunger Games?

Somewhere in here, there’s also a plot about Emily’s Christmas pageant, but it is extremely dull, & I will spare you further details.


Meanwhile, as Amber suffers through dress fittings with Sahil, Richard’s plan khổng lồ modernize Aldovia with “infrastructure” và “tech” is resulting, somehow, in giant protests where people shout, “What about our jobs?!” & hold signs that say “no more layoffs!” One fantastic prokiểm tra sign reads, simply, “WHY?!”

In the midst of this potential proletariat uprising, a face appears from the past — someone A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding is positive we will recognize and who will therefore be meaningful khổng lồ us all as an important story development. I would swear lớn you that I have never seen this person before in my life.


Amber’s dad goes down to lớn the kitchens lớn give the royal chef a talking-khổng lồ about how gross Aldovian food is. She is wildly nonplussed, as would I be if I’d worked my way up khổng lồ being head chef for a royal family and some random diner owner showed up khổng lồ lecture me about my menus.


OH, DANG! The person whose identity I totally forgot is Sitháng, the guy who tried to overthrow Richard in the first movie! He walks into lớn the palace and there’s a truly remarkable zoom sequence when he shows up, & then … nothing happens. Sitháng asks to hang around for a while, và Richard dourly agrees because it’s Christmas. Sure!


Oh, noooo, Richard and Amber were going to lớn go piông xã out a Christmas tree for the palace courtyard, but it gets canceled when the plebs rise up và dem& to lớn be paid. What a bummer! It’s also a bummer for Princess Emily, whose pageant rehearsal is shut down because the “theater workers” have sầu “gone on strike in solidarity.” I promise I am telling you as little about this pageant as I possibly can.


Richard is upset because the country’s financial situation is really bad, what with the massive sầu labor strike, và he can’t figure out why. But traitorous cousin Sitháng, whom he let baông xã inkhổng lồ the castle for no reason at all, suggests a cryptocurrency option! Also, Richard’s mom brought in some dude named Lord Leopold who’s going to fix everything right up.


This is the man in charge of the entire Aldovian economy. Anyhow, Amber finally picks out a tree for the palace courtyard, & then everyone goes tobogganing. Then there’s the pageant, which I am telling you about only because afterward Emily decorates cookies with the other kids & Amber blogs about it.


A banner entry for Amber’s Blog, which appears khổng lồ be powered by a default WordPress template: “Christmas Spirit Has Overtaken the Palace.”


Except this time, the palace has decided that Amber’s blog is a breach of protocol, và they take the whole thing down. Even though, as Amber points out, it was trending. Trending! But Mrs. Averill has no respect for its “tons of positive sầu comments!” “I seriously doubt that traditional protocols were phối up for viral social truyền thông,” Amber says about her blog, which is somehow not an Instagram account.


Speaking of images & the importance thereof, Amber và Richard pose for their royal portrait and Amber haaaates it. Sahil says her necklace is wrong, and Amber’s all ticked because it was a locket with a picture of her mother. Richard, a man who wouldn’t know a limeriông chồng if it got shipped to lớn him from Nantucket, doesn’t st& up for her. Between this và her blog being taken down, Amber’s patience is wearing thin.


On the eve sầu of the wedding, Amber’s friends, neither of whom have names, fly inlớn Aldovia for the wedding. Instead of wild bachelorette festivities, Amber insists they spkết thúc the night investigating whatever’s going awry with the Aldovian economy. My understanding of national economies is that they tover khổng lồ sink & float on more than the mechanics of a simple whodunit, but Amber’s gonmãng cầu don dark sunglasses at nighttime và snoop around anyhow.

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Amber, the sunglasses trick didn’t work when you flew inkhổng lồ the airport — what makes you think they’ll work now? I also have several questions about Aldovia, sparked by this brief scene of them walking down the sidewalk và hanging out in this bar. How big is Aldovia? Does it have multiple major cities? Why is the national language English? Why do they all have vaguely, unevenly British accents? What’s the currency? Why does the prime minister show up for one useless scene? Are there no non-state-run businesses? What bởi vì they think of Brexit?


After some cursory Googling, Amber decides that she needs more information on a company called Meadowlark. Then Emily rolls in and announces that she “knows a thing or two about hacking.” “If I can create a network interface that catches the traffic to the legitimate hệ thống, I can backdoor the access,” says the character who, half an hour ago, pouted about not having a Christmas tree.


With petulant child/probable 4chan enthusiast Princess Emily “hacking” all night to break into the Hall of Records, Amber & her friends have sầu a “bachelorette các buổi party.” The friends still vì not have sầu names, so let’s call them Blachồng Girl Frikết thúc và Gay Guy Friend. In what must be one of the saddest buổi tiệc ngọt montages ever made, Amber & Blaông chồng Girl Friover celebrate Amber’s upcoming wedding by painting Gay Guy Friend’s toenails.


Amber, what did I say about the sunglasses! Mrs. Averill is so upmix at this breach that she insists that Amber desist “any activity pertaining to blog, immediately.” King Richard, human mothball, finds himself speechless, và Amber storms out.


No one can find Amber! Richard runs around outside in the snow yelling, “Amber! Amber!” & the camera spins around hlặng in circles. Eventually, Richard hops on a horse and gallops across the countryside until he finds Amber in the exact same cozy cottage they used for a heart-to-heart at this same point in the first movie.

Once he gets to the cottage, Richard says that Amber shouldn’t have sầu to lớn sacrifice her blog lớn be queen. (I’m paraphrasing here, but only barely.) Cool, time lớn head bachồng khổng lồ the castle!


Richard announces khổng lồ the assembled family that somehow Lord Leopold managed to steal just the right amount of money to lớn tank the entire Aldovian economy without anyone noticing. Amber threatens lớn shoot an arrow at him! And then Leopold gets thrown in the dungeon. Aldovia: where nobody toàn thân really knows whether it’s 2006 or 1706, but it sure isn’t 2018.


Richard gives a public address about how the corruption’s all fine now & everyone in Aldovia gets a Christmas bonus (how many people live in this country?!), so now it’s wedding time! This screenshot is an excuse lớn remind you that the woman who plays Richard’s mother is Alice Krige, a.k.a. QUEEN OF THE BORG.


After uncovering the dastardly threat khổng lồ Aldovia, Amber is allowed to pick her own wedding clothes, including bedazzled sneakers. Her dad gets khổng lồ serve sầu sliders at the reception. The stakes of this movie are very low.


Amber is pronounced “Queen Amber of Aldovia.” Everyone claps, Amber and Richard bởi vì not smash cake into each others’ faces, cousin Sitháng almost certainly hooks up with Black Girl Friend, và Sahil maybe hooks up with Gay Guy Friover.


The final image of this movie is so, so weird: Amber & Richard sneak out inkhổng lồ the courtyard so they can make out in private for once, và then the whole wedding reception comes out and does a conga line around them. The peppy conga music morphs into lớn triumphant closing trumpet cadences, but the conga line continues! This is supposed khổng lồ be … cute? Romantic? Think about how bizarre it would be if, at your own wedding, you ran outside khổng lồ get a break và the entire reception followed you out inkhổng lồ the snow, laughing & yelling, “CONGA!” And then you just stood there and kept kissing.


I guess it could be a metaphor for the whole Christmas Prince story, something about performance & the tension of private selves versus public duty & learning lớn be comfortable under really strange displays of mannered jollity?

Or it’s just a massive shrug to kết thúc this massive shrug of a holiday movie. So long, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, và thanks for all the limericks.

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