Christmas at the Palace

The main problem with this film was the assamption that every prince has to be coming from Europe and having a british accent. The story was cliche and predictable, but at least, the daughter was pretty adorable.

Cute but there is nothing special about this royal Christmas movie. It doesn't help Merrit Patterson once again plays a woman who gets involved with a Royal as she did in A Royal Winter and the TV series The Royals.

As Romanian, I appreciate the locations from my country. But this is the only good point. Because the film is just illustration of the old Hallmark recipe about royalty Christmas - from the widower young king, father of a girl, to American she becoming the chosen. Another sin - too, too many Christmas ornaments. But , decent in large lines.

Even though this was the typical Christmas live story, I still enjoyed it. The characters were all very likable. It wasn't overly cheesy. Only fault I had was whoever did the king's makeup, did an awful job. First time I've ever really noticed something like that.

Great news! If you crave movie clichés about Christmas, about royalty, or about stuffy Europeans and free-spirited Americans then you only need to watch one movie this year! Better news! Take the phrases "Christmas at the Palace", "skating pageant" and "single-parent king" and now you don't even have to watch that movie, 'cos you know every single thing which is going to happen. We know that Christmas movies will demand a wide-eyed acceptance from the audience - of course they will - but other ones made a modicum of effort to earn this. Here they put the keywords into the slot, pushed the button and accepted unaltered the story and dialogue which fell out the other end. Actual dialogue: Cardboard cut-out king: "What are you watching?" Princess: "Christmas movie." Cardboard cut-out king: "Well, we both know how that's going to end!" Yes, yes we do. But this is not witty self-awareness: it is an admission of the film makers' laziness. There were positives: young India Fowler as Princess Christina (whom I hadn't seen before) is an actor, and may have a lot of potential. Okay, there was one positive. Let's be generous and assume that the people reviewing this highly are pre-teens who haven't seen a Christmas romance movie before, and say no more about it.

I'm not a fan of royal stories, Christmas or otherwise. This one was middle of the road for me, but I enjoyed Merritt Patterson's energy in the beginning. The approach to the royal story was a little different. The latter half of the movie didn't live up to the beginning for me. It looked like they introduced a twist to the obvious expectation, but then switched again.