A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding
Director: John Schultz
Writer: Karen Schaler, Nate Atkins
Sequel to: A Christmas Prince
Cast: Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, Alice Krige, Honor Kneafsey, Sarah Douglas, Theo Devaney, John Guerrasio, Tahirah Sharif, Joel McVeagh, Tom Knight, Richard Ashton, Raj Bajaj, Simon Dutton, Katarina Cas
Seen on: 28.12.2019

Plot:
It’s been a year that Amber (Rose McIver) and Richard (Ben Lamb) got together and Richard ascended to the throne. Now they are planning their wedding. Or rather, everyone is planning their wedding for them, with Amber having a very hard time to have her wishes respected, or heard at all. Maybe her discomfort means that she shouldn’t become a queen in the first place? Richard is also not much help as he is preoccupied with the failing finances of his kingdom that run counter to all of his modernization intiatives.

I honestly can’t really tell you why I even watched A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, given that the first one wasn’t a particularly great experience for me. The Royal Wedding was even worse – and I still couldn’t pry myself away from the screen or stop myself from watching the sequel.

There is one thing about The Royal Wedding that works better than in the first film: Richard actually gets (more of) a personality. It’s not necessarily a great personality, but he is a bit more than just a space where you can project whatever you want to see. So, yay?

But other than that, I struggled with all of the same issues as in the first one: the royalism, the utter predictability that is done in such an uncharming way that I can’t even excuse it with the fact that we are talking about a Christmas movie, and the cripping up in casting nondisabled Kneafsey as disabled Emily.

This film does have the additional cringeworthy addition of wedding planner/designer/master Sahil (Raj Bajaj). I mean, including a queer-coded person of color in the film should be a reason to celebrate, but unfortunately, he is such a (homomisic, racist) stereotype that I would have preferred it if they had done without him instead.

If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one, too, it is a very fitting sequel. But don’t expect things to become different if you didn’t like the first one. It’s definitely not different/better.

Summarizing: Save yourself by not even starting!