A Royal Christmas Crush

A christmas without Hallmark Channel, is that even possible? I am afraid so since these films get millions of people watching every year. People love Hallmark christmas movies more than anything, and i mean love them i mean in every possible way. Even more than their own husbands, just ask any married woman and i can guarantee they will agree. No matter what you personally think about Hallmark Channel you can not deny they don´t know what they are doing. They produce these films knowing that this is for a certain audience who loves romantic stories and who dream of finding your lifetime partner. Over the last 20 years at least i have seen some Hallmark Channel christmas films on TV. While some have not been so good ther have been a few that you could at least watch without getting seizures. For example back in 2019 i reviewed the Hallmark christmas movie The Mistletoe Secret and didn´t give it a horrible rating, but that was because of Dallas actor Patrick Duffy and his charming character Mack Eubanks. In some ways you could say that Patrick Duffy saved the film The Mistletoe Secret from being another generic Hallmark film because of his screen presence. I might as well add that he did deliver the best dialogue scenes as well in this film. Every year i try to go through some titles from Hallmark Channel or Lifetime movies ( even though i personally prefer Lifetime thrillers ). Since i try to review some Christmas movie every year if possible, i decided to have a look aroun what Hallmark have released this year so far. After going through a whole list that never seemed to end, i decided to pick a film called A Royal Christmas Crush. I didn´t watch any trailer and only saw the poster for this film just to know as little as possible. Is this the greatest christmas movie of this year or should you run and hide underneath the avalanches, hoping you never see this film in daylight again?

Ava Jensen ( Katie Cassidy ) accepts the oppurtunity to work at the Royal Ice Hotel, where the Royal family of Friorland is coming to stay. While all the work is done and the Royal Ice Hotel is ready to welcome their guests, the Royal family arrives and Ava suddenly have eye contact with Prince Henry ( Stephen Huszar ). It might seem innocent at first but as they get to know each other on a personal level, something magical is about to happen.

Ok people, we need to talk.

I can accept bad acting and horrible dialogue if it´s done in a charming way. I can even accept a horrible story as long as the film is entertaining.

But come on, what the hell is this Hallmark Channel?

A Royal Christmas Crush is a 82 minutes long romantic christmas drama that may please housewife mothers, other than that i don´t believe you will find many more who will enjoy this film. This is one of the christmas Hallmark films that have such terrible acting that you will wonder who on earth thought this cast would be perfect for A Royal Christmas Crush? I got bored already after watching this film for 15 minutes and i knew i had to suffer at least 1 hour and 7 minutes more before the film ends. And when you feel like this after 15 minutes of play time i think that is a sign that this is a truly awful start. Let us begin talking about the character of Prince Henry ( i promise this is not a parody of Prince Harry ) played by actor Stephen Huszar. In this film it´s supposed to look like he is around 30 years old, when in fact in real life he is almost 40 years old. The problem with that is that you can tell he isn´t 30 years old and definetely looks much older. I realise that people may age differently so it´s not to judge someone´s personal look, but when it becomes obvious you are playing a character that doesn´t even seem to be younger than his own parents, it does look quite strange. The acting from Stephen Huszar is just as exciting as watching chestnuts roasting over an open fire. Actress Katie Cassidy ( who can be seen in the 2006 horror film Black Christmas as well ) is in this film and...not much else?. She looks lovely and i am sure she is a nice woman but her acting is not good. The other characters in this film don´t really bring anything special to their characters. What about the story? There is a story here but i promise you will not remember it after watching this film. Anything positive to say? The inside of the ice royal ice hotel does look nice and that´s about it. A Royal Christmas Crush will definetely go down in the year of 2023 as the most forgettable christmas movie of this year. Director Marita Grabiak directed 7 episodes of the classic TV series Angel between the years 2001 - 2003 and have directed quite a lot of christmas films since then. I would suggest that she should return to the Angel formula and give us a film similar to that TV series instead of films such as A Royal Christmas Crush. Whiskey anyone? If not i might need a lot of it after my experience with this film.

Rating: D