Royalteen

I have read the books and this film follows book 1 closely. It was so similar to how I imagined it when I read the book, so well done there! I recommend seeing it, but keep in mind that not everything is tied up in the end. This might have worked better as a TV series. It sort of felt like episode 1, and I imagine it would be a bit annoying to watch this and not know what happens next already.

That said, the scenery is beautiful, the actors are believable and good - nice to see actual teenagers play roles their age! If you liked Young Royals or Skam, this a movie for you. I really hope they continue this and make movies of the next books, too.

After reading that plot description you can easily see where the similarities between Royalteen and Young Royals cross over. Both follow a crown prince falling in love with a commoner but where Young Royals is a series and can expand on this more, Royalteen doesn't have that luxury. As I mentioned in the beginning this movie is based on a book that's the first of a series and it probably could've worked better as a series. The story for this movie just doesn't get as fleshed out as it could've. This movie's story didn't really know what to focus on when it came to the relationship between Lena and Kalle and the drama for this movie. I feel like their relationship should've been expanded upon or just better written as their already non-realistic relationship felt even more unrealistic. This isn't a spoiler but something that should've been changed is Lena's reaction to dating the crown prince in this movie; she just acts like it's a normal thing and doesn't question it. Sure this could be here just seeing him as a normal guy but I still feel like she would have some kind of reaction. This movie's story didn't have a balance between the drama and romance in this movie and would just try to find places to shove whichever element was missing into it. I will give the story this other than the secret being easy to guess from the very beginning the rest of this story isn't too badly predictable as I suspected it would be. But that being said, this movie is still pretty clunky when it comes to the way the story was executed. The way this story is told is pretty confusing due to the editing in this movie along with the pacing.

The pacing of this movie started off pretty good with everything lining up and making sense and then after half an hour into the movie it does a full 180. The pacing of this movie started to feel slow despite what was happening on screen. The story for this movie moved really fast which I think definitely didn't help with the pacing and you can tell it tried to keep up with everything going on but couldn't. For example, Lena and Kalle's relationship moves so fast during this movie and it's hard to figure out how much time has passed since it started. This comes in how I mentioned the editing for this movie in how this movie just feels like scenes thrown together to try and make a movie. Another thing with the pacing of this movie is the ending of this movie just moves at lightning speed. The last 20 minutes of this movie just goes by so fast and makes very little sense. You can tell they were hoping for a sequel to get greenlit so they could expand on things which just makes this movie feel unfinished. This is where making this story a tv series could've helped it out a bit more as more episodes mean more time to flesh everything out and have everything make sense. For example, You get one scene where Lena meets Kalle and in the next, he's flirting with her with zero context that he's into her. What definitely doesn't help with this situation is the acting in this movie. Now, I never want to hate on the actors as I know they're just following the director's direction but here I just couldn't get hooked into it. You can tell the two main leads are trying their best but in the end, it just falls flat. They don't really have much chemistry with each other, again given more time they could've had chemistry, which doesn't help anything at all. I would love to say the side characters were better but none of them were really given any time to shine. The side characters were just that side people who served zero purposes to the plot. What doesn't help the actors out is the fact that all of the characters in this movie are flat. They are all cliche characters that have zero character growth and nothing that makes them stand out. The only actors in this I really enjoyed were Veslemøy Mørkrid and Petter Width Kristiansen who play Lena's parents. They were the only likeable part of this movie and helped make it tolerable. In the end, Royalteen might not be a full-on cliche drama romance movie but it's still not the best one out there. If you're looking for something like this, I recommend checking out Young Royals as it does this story way better.

I didn't read the book this was based on so I'm not sure if it's a good adaptation but as it is... it's not really great.

I watched totally blind expecting it to be a light hearted royalty teen romcom similar to "Prince and Me" or "Royal Treatment" but it wasn't (not necessarily a bad thing!). I was surprised to see them add in more delicate topics a teenager may face. It wasn't some masterpiece twist but it does at least separate its characters from the usual. They have high consequence actual flaws and issues like dealing with social stigma... it's not just sunshine and rainbows.

However the execution of everything was lackluster. Pacing was horrible. Instead of focusing on the whole of the story they chose to highlight the "romance" part that it overshadowed the struggles of the characters because it was all about the romance that was basically non-existent here because they didn't really give it time to mature and create chemistry. They just fell in love for some reason after like bumping into each other? You can't build a good romance without foundation. They even addressed the deeper issues that made the whole plot better so flippantly...it's just disappointing.

This would have been better as a limited series of sort to really delve into the characters' struggles, why they act they way they do, so you can actually empathize with them while the romance is a B-plot to create that slow burn. But alas this wasn't it.

This had the makings of a good film, with a refreshing view of a royal/commoner romance, and a likable cast.

It felt a little bit like the UK TV series Sex Education, except there's no comedy.

Unfortunately there are substantial flaws.

The romance commenced too quickly, and everything in the story seemed rushed. The conclusion left unresolved story arcs aplenty (i.e. The queen, the princess, Lena's unrevealed history, the mystery uploader) as if this is part one of a dilogy or trilogy. However I am not aware of any impending sequels.

I still enjoyed it until the unsatisfactory ending.

Feels like a lot of Young Royals fans have given this movie ones as a way of supporting their favorite show.

This movie is nothing like that show.

Honestly this movie is enjoyable in a weird way even though the genre is not my favorite.

Acting and casting is great and it's a nice mix of comedy, drama and romance.

Solid 6 out of 10.