User Reviews

We've made a heroic effort the last few years to catch every Hallmark Christmas movie, last year some of the GAF movies, and this year all of both. We don't make an effort for the Lifetime movies, because in our opinion, they're much more miss than hit.

The last four years of Hallmark have gone downhill in our eyes, and we've made the decision to cease our quest to watch them all. We'll continue to sample our favorite stars and possibly check some reviews for the rest. Movies like this made that decision easier to arrive at.

I think all three networks have overdone it. Too many plots are just rehashed versions of previous movies, and some of the efforts to "do something new" stretch so far out they crash and burn.

So what does all that have to do with GAF's Crown Prince of Christmas? It's a harmless little movie, but with an absurd premise and some ham-fisted writing and direction which embarrassed us for the actors and writers at times. I had to get used to my wife saying "Oh Good God!", like the cut-away take where the hotel employee has to stuff his fist in his mouth in an emotional reaction to the ubiquitous wrap-up kiss.

I liked the characters, it's just that every few minutes there were scenes too stupid to believe ... either from atrocious dialogue, poorly wrought motives and reactions, or overplayed cliches. GAF had a couple of very nice movies this year, but they've also had some real stinkers, and so has Hallmark.

This movie didn't offend our senses enough to rate it lower than 4, but it's not one we'll ever consider watching again.

Yet another "royal" Christmas re-hash. The prince-pretending-to-not-be-a-prince (Jilon VanOver) was actually not a bad actor. He was believable, both as Madison's co-worker friend and as a prince. Madison (Cindy Busby) and her entire family were excruciatingly bad. Her sisters laughably bad actors. Her mom was ditzy and over-emoting most of the time. Her dad was mostly invisible. Even the scene where he tries to empathize with Madison was non-descript. But even he was better and more believable than the King and Queen. I had the idea they just grabbed a couple off the street, dressed them in what they thought passed for regal costumes and set them loose. Don't waste your time on this one.

There are a few good moments because the 2 leads are basically good actors and have a certain amount of rapport. The premise is cute (it's a Christmas movie after all) but most of the characters are just plain annoying and one dimensional. The make-up for Cindy Busby, her prince, and her family was truly awful. All their faces just looked dirty and heavy. She has a natural beauty but that was destroyed by that "muddy" look. And her mother was truly the most annoying character I've seen in one of these movies. Ever. Fire the director. And the makeup artist. Or re-train them. This is passable as a time filler if you're up for a day of Christmas movie binge watching, but doesn't stand well on its own. Cindy's singing was passable and fun to see but was built up to be more impressive than it actually was.

This movie is a disappointment for me. I've watched Cindy Busby in other Hallmark movies and she was great and the other day I watched this movie, "A Crown Prince of Christmas" from Great American Family and I couldn't help but cringe. OMG! It was really bad. First, they could have used a much better venue for a "$3K Royal Gala" in a ballroom fit for a king. Instead, they used a restaurant table with a tiny stage where Madison (Cindy Busby) sang "Silent Night". She was pitchy, off-key and her make up was terrible. The character Sebastian wasn't good either. I don't recommend this movie. Oh sooooo bad.

I watch a lot of Christmas movies and with four networks now cranking them out full time, I had to pick and choose more. Now I pick films that vary from the traditional formula or have stars that I really enjoy.

This one got my attention because it had a slight twist on an old theme and both leads were engaging. However, it felt very low budget, like super low. Odd camera angles, shots and close-ups, awkward pauses, and some not great acting and dialogue.

However, the biggest disservice to the script was the obviously low budget they had to produce it. Part of the premise was that the hotel was supposed to be a luxury hotel lavishly decked out for Christmas! In fact, that was the reason it was chosen for the "Gala". However, the bulk of the decoration was tinsel garland and strings of lights. And the same tinsel showed up everywhere, on every set (the red and silver). I even think I saw one small, unfluffed wreath with two present bows stuck to it being hung on a wall!

Another big plot element was the "Royal Gala" which felt more like a daytime junior high assembly. Minimal set decoration, tiny crowd, no lighting or orchestra. The headline entertainment was an acapella version of Silent Night?!? Cindy is a decent singer, but certainly not the prodigy that built up the entire movie. Heck, even the most accomplished singer wouldn't drive the crowd into that frenzy in that scenario. And that single song appeared to be the entire content of the gala. So odd.

I could overlook a lot of plot absurdities and predictability when it is visually beautiful and filled with Christmas imagery and magic. This unfortunately lacked and even the charming stars couldn't save it.

The movie is a fairy tale, and it has a fairy tale quality throughout so that you have to suspend your expectations of reality. The plot is unbelievable, but so are fairy tales. At times I thought the dialogue was stale.

In my opinion, the two leads did a wonderful job of working with the material. A few of the other actors I thought were very ineffective. (But it's not about that; it's about the story and what happens to the main characters.)

There was an instance where Cindy was so moved by a situation that she had genuine tears, which brought tears to my eyes. The prince also looked a bit teary as well. That depth of feeling was what surprised me, as well as the fact that I have continued to think about this movie after watching it. That doesn't happen with a total flop.

This is hands down one of the worst GAF movies I've seen yet. A ridiculous story line about yet another "prince in hiding". He's a prince, pretending to not be a prince, pretending to be a prince. Yep, that bad.

Cindy Busby cannot sing. Please stop casting her as someone with a fabulous voice. I muted the tv every time she sang. If this isn't her real voice, stop using the singer. She's not much of an actress either, I've seen her in many films, and she is always the same character. The lead actor was ok, nice looking, and did the best he could with the dreadful dialog.

The prince's parents were awful, fake accents, horrible wig on the mother, not believable at all, not to mention the actress playing the Queen isn't much older than the Prince. She must have had him when she was 10.

The makeup is terrible and off putting. Applied so thick and cakey, especially on the men. The scenes very fake. The only redeeming thing was the pretty baked goods we got to see a little of.

Singing was good, despite the false reviews being posted. My wife and i enjoyed it, definitely worth a watch for folks who like 'old school' hallmark style flicks

The male character played his part impeccably, the female lead sold her character of cluelessness.

My hunch is the lot of these "poor" reviews are part of the pro LGBT etc wave, which is another false, since roughly 1 in 3000 (yep) couples in the country are LG and so on. So writing in LG couples into everything really is false narrative, a HUGE false narrative

This movie is from the GAF platform, which is refusing to write this false narrative into their scripts, and so the bots are attacking it

It is low budget, and so has very few 'extras in it, the male and female leads carry the movie, that being said, ignore the Bots and enjoy the movie

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Cindy Busby was always one of my favorites when she was on Hallmark movies. She's cute, perky, quirky, and always entertaining. And, here movies were always endearing, cute, and funny.

But this one? The writing, acting, and overall appeal is just not there. It's not Cindy's fault, she was great as always. But everything else? Yikes!

The plot and story is completely predictable. It's one of those movies that I kept checking to see how much time was left so it would be over.

Other than Cindy, I didn't feel the character's parts. Just not a Hallmark by any means! For those who love Cindy, it may be OK. But it wasn't for me.

This becoming a pattern with GAC movies that I'm not liking at all!

I genuinely enjoy Cindy Busby; I've watched many of her movies on Hallmark. Though she wasn't in any of their Christmas movies, I checked out this one, and oh my goodness. No. No. No.

The feel of the movie was low-budget, the storyline was weak, and any kind of singing should never happen again. I wanted more chemistry, but it was just flat.

Christmas movies on all the networks are hit or miss. Some are cheesier than others which is fine, but when they are like this movie, I can't get past it. No matter who is in it. I wanted more, but it didn't work for me. I hope her next movie is better than this one.

I watch just about every Christmas movie that comes on. If I can't watch one of the Christmas movies I will tape it so I can watch it later when I can. It's so sad that just about every one of the Christmas movies on GFSM, LIFE or Hallmark or whatever channels there on is about some prince or princess hiding out and falling in love with a commoner. But no matter what the movie is the actors are really good in them. But this movie is sooo disappointing. The actor/actress are just down right bad at acting. Couldn't believe just how bad at acting they are. Of course it's the same old, same old the prince falling in love with a commoner. Even my little girl got up and walked out shouting to me that this movie sucks!

I have to remember that one of the goals of the new GAC network is to be family friendly. I'm guessing that means movies like this one, with an obvious nod to Cinderella, are aimed to include children in the audience.

I'm used to Christmas rom/coms aimed at adults. I expect a little more subtlety in the acting. In this movie it seemed that many actors were delivering their lines with emphasis and the result often didn't seem natural, perhaps even melodramatic. That is especially the case with Cindy Busby. Add on her smile which can look pasted on and it seems even less natural. Jilon VanOver was a little better, but only slightly. In addition, characters' reactions to actions or preceding lines seemed out of place and transitions were rough.

The script often made no sense or was confusing. I will say as a definite positive that the story had some interesting twists from the beginning. I am very unhappy with a reviewer who included an untagged spoiler that bore directly on one of those twists. I think I probably would have suspected, but I will never know and the twist was revealed about the halfway point. The tone of the story was upbeat and there was almost no tension other than Madison's nerves and that seemed overplayed not to mention inconsistent.

I agree that the sets gave a definite low budget feel. The "Gala" had something like only 30-40 people and a tiny stage. The makeup was often bad, especially for Cindy Busby.

I find it interesting that all the written reviews as of this writing are lower than the average overall rating, including my own. Many of those reviews are critical of Busby's singing. I found her singing to be mostly pleasant, but lacking the polish of a regular singing performer. I would leave it at that were it not for the fact that her final note of her final song was off key.

Look, I don't expect a royal romance movie to be first class acting, big budget, and a super philosophical script with complex characters but I do expect a descent effort. This movie could've been so much better had they taken some simple steps to make it believable.

Firstly, I can't get over the language problems. A Norwegian-named prince who speaks Latin, comes from a Britishly named country where they eat decorated Belgian/Dutch cookies. Pick a region, people! It's not that hard. With a minimal amount of effort, they could've easily had names, regional traditions, and the language match. And for Pete's sake, think of a country name that doesn't sound like a butchered mashup of Luxemburg, we all know you just googled "small European countries" and made a word salad. All of it sounds completely ridiculous and it's distracting to any viewer who knows anything about western Europe.

Second, the male lead. Jilon VanOver comes across as a guy, impersonating a puppy. It's weird. He seems fake, you can tell with every look and every word that he's acting. He's trying to be sweet and dreamy but he never really became his character. Was there really no better actor available?

And lastly, who did Cindy Busby's makeup and hair for the gala scene? She looks like she did her makeup while cycling to set. The eye makeup is just two black blobs, the skin looks really sweaty, and the lipstick looks like a 5 year applied it to mommy after picking out an awful color. It makes it so awkward when everybody is looking at her as if she's a princess.

The rest of the movie is pretty standard, exactly what you would expect from a movie of this caliber. I just wish we'd stop with the "big lie" plots. Why do these movies always have to have someone who lies about who they are in it? There are plenty of other drama twists waiting on a screenwriter to use them.

In the end, it all comes down to effort. It is a watchable film, it's okay, but it's littered with "dumb American" mistakes, the ones posh Europeans roll their eyes at, on top of all the other awkward fails. Every single one of them could've been avoided, had the makers just put in a little bit of effort.

We've seen this movie done over and over. It's getting old. The Prince comes to work in America and goes incognito. No one knows he is a Prince until after a year of him being there. Lack of chemistry between the 2 leads. Madison's family is so cringy. Her dad overacts and the 2 sisters act childish and the mom had the most annoying voice. Madison sings one song at the gala. It just so stupid. Normally I like Cindy but not in this roll. I feel like GAC and Hallmark need some new writers with new ideas. Typically I don't watch anything Royal related but I taped this one because I like Cindy. Take it or leave it.

Of course all these movies are fairy tales with happy endings, that's what we expect. However, some are not worth watching. The prince really is very nice looking and probably the best actor in the movie. Poor acting, lack of Christmas decor and appearing to be a low budget movie was evident through out. Cindy Busby's singing was so bad. She was off key and a very unpolished singer. I could not believe Wikipedia listed her as an actor AND a professional singer. She's cute and bubbly but not a great actress and definitely not a singer!

Hallmark movies are very well produced, decorative, and professionally done most of the time. This Crown Prince of Christmas on Great American Family was a disappointment. I have watched many movies that are great on this network!...this one was not.

This is awful. Just awful. Truly, truly awful. I wish I could have given it a zero. The plot was okay. I like the premise of a real prince pretending to be normal while pretending to be a prince to please a girl. It was a cute idea. They were an okay couple. They had a nice and easy chemistry. I don't know who told Cindy that she could sing but whoever told her need to be sued. In my opinion, she need not sing on the television screen ever again. Ever. It was just not good. Don't get me started in the acting from both of the families. Stale and terrible. I don't know what else to say other than I cannot get back the time I spent watching this movie.

This was awful. The plot was entirely predictable and the two leads had no chemistry. I was distracted by the female lead's yellow teeth and her makeup was so awful it made me not want to look at the screen. The women playing her mom and sisters are truly awful actresses and their scenes were so bad and cringy it have me secondhand embarrassment.

If the movie is about a royal family, I expect the sets to reflect that. Apparently there was no budget for the decor because the fancy gala looked like a middle school dance with dollar store decorations. Hallmark would never.

And finally, there was so much emphasis on the lead being a breathtaking singer and we were supposed to be blown away with her big performance, but it fell flat. Her voice was neither good nor bad, but they should have had an actress with a GREAT voice considering we were supposed to be in awe of the voice.

This was a movie made with terrible actors. Shocked that After acting in Heartland this actress has gotten worse rather then better. All the actors were terrible. All the decor was tacky and very cheap looking and for a Royal Gala you would have thought that there were more terrible actors attending. The hotel was a joke as well as the manager. I am surprised that this new television station even played this movie. Many Hallmark actors moved to this network and it sure won't help them having such horrible Christmas movies on it. This is not the only one I have watched this year that should not have been on TV at all.

I had seen this movie once before, and I had thought it was decent (rating it as a 6) but not remarkable. But I began watching it again, not recalling, at first, that I had seen it once before. What I soon realized is that the entire plot had been far more carefully designed and set up than I had remembered. It held together quite well. More important, as key elements of the plot were revealed to the main characters, they handled each new revelation in a fully believable manner. This helped the entire movie come across as being "real", despite the improbable nature of the plot.

As to some of the other reviews that complain that the singing wasn't good enough; well, at some points it was good and at other points not so much. But so what? This wasn't billed as being a musical production movie. It is a movie which has a plot that involves singing. They key point is that the singing aspects moved forward the very satisfying plot line.

There is more to this movie than at first meets the eye. That's why I upgraded my rating from a 6 to an 8, and almost to a 9.