A Royal Christmas on Ice

After last week bragging on GAF for stepping up their game this year, we come to this.

Weak dialogue, weak acting, and a contrived and unconvincing story line had us deciding to abandon this film sometime during the Christmas party scene.

Seriously, how long can you milk the angst from a dropped bakery cake? According to these writers, for a VERY long time. There was a bit of self-awareness when the female lead's friend asked her why she was so hostile to the guy (who by the way, SHE bumped into in the action, not the other way around as they continually stated in dialogue) when what happened was an accident and he went well out of his way to make it right.

Exactly.

Dialogue with the ubiquitous 'old boyfriend' was weak and unconvincing. Dialogue back with the male lead's royal family was awkward and glacial in pace.

We could finally take no more, despite the fact we're ice skating fans and were drawn by the premise.

The story is a spin on the royalty, post-injury ice skater, and failing business tropes, but it works. The acting, with the exception of the small role of Stephen Baldwin and the promising actor in the lead male role, is inexcusably terrible. Everyone either over or under acted. I could hardly get through it, and my expectations for these movies is pretty low.

It also seemed incomplete, because the rest of the royal family was set up to be revisited, but wasn't. That part of the story was just dropped. They rushed to the unrealistic and unbelievable ending.

Not to be picky, but they could have spent an extra 15 minutes to teach them to ice a cupcake. That was ridiculous.

Don't waste your time.

That's what comedians used to say after a joke fell flat, not unlike this movie.

This premise of royalty meeting American commoners and giving up everything for them is the fairy tale, but how many of these schlock-fests are we going to be forced to endure?

Forced is the wrong word, I suppose: nobody made me watch this. And as another reviewer pointed out, there has been significant improvement in the GAV offerings this year. But not this one.

The lead actress had her appeal, but the rest of the cast reminded me of a local theater production.

There were some performances that were not awful: the baker had a nice way about him, and the best friend was ok.

William Baldwin didn't add anything by his presence, not that I would expect any different.

It's too bad. This looked like it might be ok from the trailer. Guess that's why they make them.

This was probably the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen. I would find myself being embarrassed for the cast.

Abigail was a pretty girl but strange. Very negative and snarly. Obviously, her glass was halfway empty.

The scene when she is skating and just holding her arm out with a slow turn and John clapping for her was pretty bad.

John was nice looking but when he would smile his smile at her with the look in his eyes, it was freaky. In real life I would think he was a stalker and was making evil plans. Her ex boyfriend was just thrown in a couple of times, for what reason I have no idea.

In fact, the entire movie was like that, not really ever running smoothly. Throwing in a hamburger- peppermint casserole didn't help at all.

If this is an example of new Christmas movies, it's not anything to look forward to.

God bless it, I think sometimes it could be the right move to not accept the part if offered.

Does "family entertainment" mean it was written by a 10 year old. Perhaps it was written for a younger audience because it lacks the sophistication I would expect for a movie aimed at the usual Christmas romance crowd.

The script is bad. The dialogue is filled with inanities and lacks any sparkle. The acting is mediocre, although Anna Marie Dobbins' Abigail does have some screen appeal. The story is simplistic. I was glad to see that Prince John was not an imminent heir to the throne so a romance with Abigail was not as impossible as is often the case in Royal movies. I understand time compression in movies, but it does make me cringe a little when characters "fall in love" so quickly.

There is some figure skating but the camera work is clumsy with frequent changing angles and closeups that are too close up.

This is not one to watch again.