eriebeachboy

Cramming the content of a novel into a two-hour movie means you're going to see characters eliminated and scenes combined, that's just a given. To say "the book was better" is a well-worn cliche, so I won't use it here, but having read the book first, I was saddled with expectations that were never met.

For a light, two-hour "Hallmark movie the week" style flick? Red, White & Royal Blue was fine. But the cost was having to eliminate most of the emotion, peril and building up to the big scenes that the book had. The pacing felt rushed, and it seemed like the director was trying to get to from one big moment from the book to the next, as quickly as possible before they ran out of time.

Casting-wise, the actors all pretty much looked exactly like how they were meticulously described in the book-with one glaring exception. In the book, Alex was much younger. Closer to 21. He was also noticeably shorter than Henry too, at around 5' 7" or 5' 8" (which is why his "He doesn't look 6' 2"!" line in the film seems to come out of nowhere). Nicholas Galitzine was a decade to old and far too tall for the part. Instead of seeing a young college student fall for a tall, handsome prince? We spent two hours watching two grown Abercrombie & Fitch models trying to "out hot" each other.

Overall the film was cute and worked fine, but it lacked most of the emotion and actual peril the book rewarded us with-and what a 3 to 5-episode mini-series could've delivered.

Shows like this tend to be loose with the truth, but there's a lot of reality served up in this episode. Despite the January 6'er downvoting this episode because he realized that he's no different than the bad guys Kareem's flashbacks highlight, it's fascinating to see the dynamic between Magic and Kareem early on and the demons that he had to face with his faith and how America was, and frankly? Still is. A nice entry in the series.

To all the haters of the show, it boggles my mind that you don't realize that this is NOT REAL LIFE. Yes, we know the football action isn't 100% accurate, and we get to see the inner personalities of these characters that have grown on us the last two seasons. But you wouldn't care so much about the show or the characters if we didn't get to see their emotions and their relationships with each other. If you just want to watch coach Forrest Gump and the shenanigans of a happy-go-lucky football club? Rewatch the first few episodes of season one over and over again on a loop. Otherwise, there's no doubt that this is one of the best TV shows to air in a very long time and its high score on IMDb is warranted.