The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale

Of the Swan Princess films, the best one is by far the first one which I still find an enjoyable film now. The following sequels Secret of the Castle and Mystery of the Enchanted Kingdom were not great and had a fair bit wrong with them but had components too that made them watchable. The Swan Princess Christmas was hugely disappointing and a terrible film in general, it looked bad when advertised and the film was even worse. A Royal Family Tale is a marginal improvement over that film but was a big mess still, the only that works really is that the chemistry between Odette and Alise has moments where it's sweet, the scene with them in Alise's room in the castle is actually quite touching.

The animation is not as horrendous as it was in Swan Princess Christmas but is still very bad, with the blocky character movements, at times creepy facial expressions, backgrounds that make plastic feel like they have more life and the incredibly flat colours it constantly looked like an outdated video game with no fluidity, vibrancy or detail. The music- like Christmas- makes no effort to be true to the style of the original film, something that the first two sequels did try to do, the incidental music doesn't always flow or fit, is sometimes paced ploddingly and has a real habit of drowning out the dialogue. And there is a very rushed-sounding and unnecessary song that is also immediately unmemorable and badly sung. The dialogue is really stilted with the few comedic moments sounding forced, the "touching" parts sounding cloying and the darker parts being confusingly written and at worst potentially traumatising.

None of the characters are interesting or likable apart from Odette, who may have lost her feistiness but shows a very admirable caring side. Derek is as wet as a drip(just as he was in the previous outings but he is at his blandest); Alise apart from that one scene with Odette is too sickly sweet; Uberta for the very first time is annoying; Rodgers, Speed and Puffin have next to nothing to do; the squirrels are over-used and Royal Family Tale has by far the worst villain of the entire Swan Princess series. Of Odette's three animal sidekicks the only one to get a halfway-decent amount of screen-time is Jean-Bob and even he is at his least funniest. The voice acting is all over the place mostly, Ellie Deets is quite good but the rest either over-compensate or sound bored, Ben 10's Yuri Lowenthal is the most recognisable name but doesn't offer that much enthusiasm.

But it is the complete jumble that passes for a story where Royal Family Tale falls down most upon. The adoptive daughter subplot was such an accessible idea and could have been really sweet but was well and truly bland as a result of being completely drowned in the use of way too much false prophesising, peril and mythology that only succeeded in convoluting the story, as well as ploddingly paced scenes that lead to nowhere and don't have any relevance to the story. Essentially it is a paper thin story conceptually that also tries to do too much to make up for it and ends up feeling very muddled and almost incoherent in places. There is a real sense too that the film wasn't entirely sure what to do with itself or as to what the target audience, from where I'm standing much of it will go over the heads of children and adults will find it too dumbed down for them. Overall, The Swan Princess A Royal Family Tree is a marginal improvement over The Swan Princess Christmas but it's still a big royal mess(pardon the pun). 2/10 Bethany Cox

The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale just doesn't have the same charm as the original Swan Princess trilogy. It all went downhill when they upgraded to CGI animation. Sometimes modern animation techniques can hurt a movie if it looks like the animators weren't even trying which is what happened here. Aside from the animation the story is not bad. I would describe it as cute but there isn't too much substance or emotion. There were a few moments when the characters seemed to behave a little insensitively which seemed unnatural but it wasn't a big issue.

I also found it rather odd that they would break out in song at the weirdest moments. Sometimes you wouldn't have a song for ages and then all of a sudden you would have 3 in a row. Everything screamed lack of passion and laziness. It's a shame because The Swan Princess has such a legacy and the new instalments have lost what made them special.

just when i thought this franchise couldn't get any worse, they had to make another one... and i was wrong, just dead wrong! okay, where the hell to start? well, might as well talk about some backstory. i've never been a fan of The Swan Princess, ever. even as a kid, i could see the movie was pretty bad. i didn't like it back then, i still don't like it today. then, despite being Crest Animation's biggest box office bomb to date, the movie still found a way to make crappier sequels. Swan Princess 2 was a bit of an improvement and obviously the best movie of the franchise, but that's not saying much. then, the franchise went downhill with the third movie, hit rock bottom with Swan Princess Christmas, and we got this. this, the worst one yet! it was literally so bad, it gave me flashbacks of the last abomination. and here's why:

1) the writing. oh my god, the writing! if this movie would've been about Odette and Derek adopting a little girl, without any other s@#$%y subplots, this movie would've been at least tolerable. but no. no no no no! they had to turn it into one of the most convoluted fantasy stories ever, drowning the movie in the overuse of fake prophecies, magical stones, bland and boring mythology and non-stop peril that's gonna traumatize kids. add in the fact that this movie has terrible pacing where a lotta scenes go nowhere and are never resolved, i still have no idea how the hell they butchered it. 2) the animation. here's a tip for ya: if you have a movie that was made in 2D animation, making it CGI 4 movies in IS PROBABLY THE STUPIDEST DECISION EVER!!! who the f@#k thought this was a good idea? whoever it was, they should be fired immediately! you should NEVER do that! cause this movie looks UGLY! the characters look gross, up to the point of looking disturbing, the movements are stiff and the graphics suck, the backgrounds are lifeless, the flying squirrels are creepy to look at and everything else feels completely flat, like it came from a s@#$%y PS1 video game. 3) the characters. okay, these characters were NEVER good. there's no depth or development to any of them. but at least - AT LEAST - they've never been as bad and stupid as they were in here. honestly, i hate them even more right now. Derek and Odette are as bland and boring as ever, the side characters still suck, the flying squirrels are creepy and overused, Alice serves nothing to the plot (she never does anything) and it has the worst villain of the franchise.

what the hell? The Swan Princess 5 is just terrible, spreading nothing but absolute boredom, with one of the most terribly written stories in an animated movie, awful animation, characters that get worse and worse with every movie, horrible pacing and the fact that the movie's only 79 minutes long but feels WAY longer than it should. it's the worst animated movie of 2014. avoid at all costs!!

There was this time period between movies where actors acted everything and then there was a period where we made movies like marvel. this movie was probably made in the midst of that transition. or, this was made when movies gave up and hit rock bottom, this movie is below rock bottom. if anything, the best rating possible is 1 star. please dont show this movie to anyone unless you are trying to make mortal enemies. P.S. this review was written by my ten year old daughter. Literally.

another Swan Princess CGI garbage?! oh hell no! Richard Rich, why you keeping doing movies in this franchise? why don't you leave it to die already? unfortunately, for people like me, we get tortured again by the newest CGI garbage that goes by the name of "The Swan Princess 5: A Royal Family Tale"... and now, i'm having a really hard time figuring out which one's the worst: "Swan Princess Christmas" or "A Royal Family Tale". anyway, this one takes place sometimes after the last one: Derek and Odette adopt a little girl and all's good, for a little while. then, a bunch of flying squirrels kidnap the little girl, cause they believe in a "corrupted prophecy" that says the swan princess's evil, and for that they kidnap the girl so they can lure Odette to their hideout to kill her. 5 minutes in and we already have a big red flag. so, Derek and Odette go on a trip to save the little girl and Odette, and take down a supposed "evil spirit" called The Forbidden Arts. and this is the second movie in this franchise that almost made me change the channel for about like 20 minutes in. it almost happened in "Swan Princess Christmas" and it almost happened here again. and seriously guys, it's bad! not totally like "Legend of Hercules" bad, but it's up there. from the opening shot of the movie, i was like "god, i really hope this piece-of-s**t CGI gets better". no i was wrong, the CGI was completely terrible. compared to the last one, it was fixed a little. that still don't mean anything, it's still horrible. everything here looks like a cut scene from a PS1 video game, it's really THAT bad. and make it worse is that the movie's just a f***ing mess! i mean, everything here just so damn complicated that you can't tell what's going on. like where the hell did we get the magical changing diamond thing from? it's just randomly there, cause they NEVER mentioned it in the other movies. the whole plot's way too forced and complicated, it's not built and it gave me a serious headache. i was like "Oh, for f**k sake, will this thing stop?" and one of the biggest mistakes this movie makes is that it drowns itself in mythology, along with a lotta exposition. it's like it was trying to "Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit". and the characters... oh my god, the characters! this is probably one of the worst casts of characters i've ever seen! everybody in this movie's incredibly dull, stupid, uninteresting, unlikable, annoying and you don't even care what happens to them. hell, even the new characters suck ass. the little girl's completely shoehorned in the movie and she doesn't have depth or a personality whatsoever; the "scullions" are down right irritating and the villain's one of the worst baddies ever! this guy never does anything throughout the entire movie, aside from blowing up the little girl's house. and i'm done talking about it, for the sake of my sanity, i'm done!

final verdict: "Swan Princess 5" is just like "Swan Princess Christmas": ugly, boring, sloppy and just a complete mess. and with a way-too-messy script and terrible, unlikable and uninteresting characters (both old and new) just make the movie a absolute train wreck. so far, this is the WORST animated movie of this year! avoid at all costs!