Private Princess Christmas

This movie is unbelievably bad, primarily due to the script but not helped by the acting or directing. Rather used to Hallmark movies not having the best acting, being a bit light on production quality, and not having the strongest scripts. But the script for this movie is just terrible. Cannot stress how bad it is. The concept of a bunch of spoiled brats being sent to a boot camp seems like a great opportunity for some hard knocks, moments of personal growth, and big laughs. This movie has none of that.

All of the humor consists of the same recycled jokes from other "boot camp" movies. Although other movies over the years have managed to make old jokes funny again, this movie fails every time. The moments that are supposed to be funny are recognizable, just not funny.

Hard knocks? Not here. Any attempts to "push" the brats are weak, including "the shredder", the lamest obstacle course conceivable and somehow the ultimate challenge they must overcome. This is taken even further when their proverbial "drill sergeant" is taken to task for being too hard on the bunch of whining brats, and starts to dial it back. This lack of adversity is problematic because it means that any moments of personal growth are impossible.

And yet, And yet somehow they do manage personal growth. Or at least that is what we are told as the story wraps up and the brats all start congratulating each other on how far they have come. But they haven't, at least not on screen making the whole thing a frustrating mess.

And of course there is romance, somehow. Again, the story pushes through with the expected romance, despite the princess never really changing from the awful person she started out being. Again, a terrible script that just fails in every way imaginable.

Skip this one.

It's a tale as old as time. A princess fails to train her Christmas tree-sniffing goat properly and gets sent to an American bootcamp for entitled people in order to prove that one day she can become queen. I mean, gee-whiz, again?!

Let's give Private Princess Christmas credit for the most ridiculous premise of the year, but not much else in this fish-out-of-water tale that is not royal in any way.

Wingravia's Princess Violet (Ali Skovbye) is the only daughter of the queen who might inherit the throne in this make believe Eastern European country of glaringly fake British accents. According to the queen, she needs some work to get the promotion. The queen finds a 10-day military boot camp in the US, that should do the trick.

The camp is littered with a crypto bro, an arrogant football player, the daughter of a rich guy and some other people whose story's just didn't land. Ryan (Derek Klena) runs the camp after rejoining the Army (maybe?) or just teaching. It's pretty loosey-goosey on the details and nobody is heading off to war after bootcamp.

As expected, our entitled princess tries to fake and cheat her way through the tests, but ends up revealing a heart of gold and some great American Sign Language skills.

We're light on love, heavy on fake accents and camo.

Cast Kudos: Tanja Dixon-Warren, who played Squibby and was apparently the only other employee of this elite camp. She was believable in her role and deserved her own story! Justice for Squibby!

Measuring Christmas Magic: None. Zip.

Alternative Movie Titles: First, let's discuss the title we got. Boo. No. Private Princess, sounds like a shy princess, not what I suspected they were going for-Private Benjamin. There was nearly no Christmas, so putting it in the title is court marshall worthy. Alternative titles: Princess Bootcamp Holiday; A royal salute Holiday; Bootcamp for Entitled People.

This is a good example of a Hallmark Christmas movie that is so off-the-wall and contrived that you wonder just why it was even made. The premise and the script are so ridiculous that there was no way that the movie could be salvaged.

Plus, there is very little having to do with Christmas here. Most of the characters are irritating, particularly the Queen (I guess she has no other name besides Mother) as played by an almost unrecognizable Erica Durance, who usually is wonderful in her movies - check her out in "Ms. Christmas Comes To Town." Why she took on this thankless role is beyond me.

The only saving grace is Tanja Dixon-Warren as Squibby.

She lets her hair down and adds some spark to the otherwise lackluster proceedings in this turkey.

I can understand why military-related viewers are very negative in their reviews of this film - but, really, you guys, what did you expect in a movie about a 10 day boot camp to toughen up a next-in-line Queen ?

Don't take that plot line seriously under any circumstances !

I am a Hallmark Christmas movie addict and give these movies alot of leeway. But as with other reviews for this movie, I had a difficult time with the storyline, the characters, the acting, the idea that this was actually a Christmas movie, the idea that there was any chemistry between any of the characters, and the fact that it jumped from one ridiculous scene to the next with no depth or continuity. I also had concerns with the movie's moral theme, in that a group of misfits were sent to be improved by a strong military officer, but instead they continued to cheat, give up and rebel. Due to all their antics the commander started to soften and give in to them. At that point all the cadets became caring, compassionate, and united. In addition, they were all able to sing in perfect pitch. Somehow there was a blip of unsubstantiated romance between the two main characters, then a falling out, a bunch of unrelated insights by several of the characters, reconciliations, and thus ending as all Hallmark movies do, with a kiss.

I watched this because I'm a sucker for princess movies. This one was such a let-down, even for a Hallmark movie. The acting was mediocre, - and yes, I know Hallmark movies aren't know for award winning acting, but this one was bad. Derek Klena was in no way convincing as a tough guy in charge of cadets. Ali Skovbye was a little more believable, but not much. British accents (or whatever they were supposed to be) seemed fake - I don't think many of them were authentic. Erica Durance as the queen seemed too young for the role. Watch this movie if you have nothing else to watch or, if me, you just like princess movies, but be prepared - it's not Cinderella.