The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale

Remember when I reviewed The Swan Princess Christmas how my Animation Advent Calendar & this came up at the end of it? Well, finally it's come! Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first movie, this is the second one in the Swan Princess series to be CGI after the revitalization starting with The Swan Princess Christmas back in 2012. Now that it's time to see Odette & Derek start a family of their own, will this movie be as charming as the first movie now a child is in the mix, or is it annoying as little bratty kids running around & shouting for no reason? I'm sorry, I can't be bothered to say 'Let's find out!' like I normally would because this movie is absolute rubbish! And if you can comprehend it, this is actually WORSE than the Christmas sequel, and I'm inviting you to witness the awfulness that is The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale & why it is so terrible!

Story: As the title suggests, the story involves Derek & Odette being pressured by Uberta into having a child, and they decide to adopt a girl called Alise after her father dies in a fire (Clearly so they don't have kids asking where babies come from & so parents don't have to talk about the birds & the bees just yet) She has trouble & doesn't want to talk, but she very quickly warms up to them despite sharing no dialogue (seriously, she calls Odette 'Mommy' at the end even though she's only known her for about 2 days & we barely see them) And do you know what the oddest thing about this is? This isn't actually the main plot! We barely get to see this side of it making the relationship between Odette, Derek & Alise severely underdevleoped! Heck, Alise barely talks & we never see them consider the fact her father died & it would have to take time for her to come to terms with her loss & to warm up to Odette & Derek. But, no! They immediately decide to adopt her when they discover she has no other living relatives & try to get her to talk during an annoying montage (I'll explain more in the songs section). Believe it or not, the main plot is much more absurd & surprisingly complicated! The Forbidden Arts before the events of the first movie changed up a prophecy where a swan princess will bring joy to the kingdom & there'll never be evil by making it the other way around! This alarms a group of squirrels, who decide to kidnap Alise & to use as bait to lure Odette & Derek to their hideout! Oh, and they're working with the Forbidden Arts and have a bad habit of using dialogue which parents thought was cool 10 years ago like 'swagger' (yes, it is annoying) I am totally serious when I say that this is the premise of the movie considering the advertising placed emphasis on the adopion, when in reality, it takes up 15 minutes at most! And who wrote & came up this crap if you may ask? Richard Rich! Let that sink in for a moment!

And if you must know, the middle of the movie is just filler with even more subplots like Uberta, Bromley & Rogers being taken hostage at the castle, Uberta & Rogers falling in love & the sidekicks serving absolutely no purpose! But the biggest problem I have is there's no connection to any of these plots. They all feel like they're competing against each other & they are still either underdeveloped or not explained very well! The movie only lasts just over an hour and it feels like an eternity! The plot is vacuous, ineptly put together, clumsy, and abysmal! Now do you understand why this is worse?

 

Animation: I'll give it this, the CGI is a bit better than the last attempt...but that's not really saying much. The character designs have the same flaws as the Christmas movie in that the 2D look doesn't transfer to 3D well making their faces virtually unrecognisable, and truthfully, really creepy! The eyes in particular are the reason why as they have a more cartoony look to them on all the characters! The character animation is a bit more polished than the last movie, but it overall feels like a PS2 game in a sense that it looks stiff or if something is sped up or slowed down. The texturing is still pretty bad on the skin, hair and the squirrel's fur but it's much more apparent with the clothing this time round. The special effects are awful, especially with the fire, smoke and magic. Actually, the only good effect or bit of animation in the entire movie was the opening titles because they're the only thing which Richard Rich has kept consistent from the movies! And that is a very bad sign! Another problem I have is the camera angles & editing of each scene, tending to speed up with the angles being really confusing as if it was a fanvid of The Sims 2! Like I said, it's a tiny bit better, but it's still completely terrible even by direct to DVD standards nowadays!

 

Characters: If you thought the past sequels butchered the characters, then it's nothing compared to this! Odette now is even more bland, uninteresting and annoying. She's just the typical kind pretty princess with nothing on her and we don't learn anything new at all! I know, she tries to get close to Alise & can relate to her because of both of them losing their respective fathers tragically, but it's pointless when we know that she's lost her father in the other movies! Derek is even more bland and stupid than before, with the personality of a lemon. Heck, he barely has any screen time & he doesn't even contribute much to the plot! Queen Uberta is still over the top like the other movies, but in this case it's incredibly annoying & insufferable! The fact she pretended to die in the beginning & pressured her son & daughter in-law to have a child was just sociopathic & she gets more & more annoying as the movie progresses. Then there's Alise, who has no personality whatsoever! She barely talks, we don't know anything about her, she barely has any screen time and is just used as a plot device rather than being her own character! Same goes to Speed, Puffin & Jean Bob by the way! In fact, they are so pointless that if you can easily take them out of the movie, and it would still be the same! The sidekick/comedy sidekick squirrels were annoying & utterly ridiculous that I just wanted to strangle them whenever they were onscreen. The Forbidden Arts (who talks for some reason now) is the non threatening villian who never explains why he wants Odette dead & is evil for just being evil! Then there's Scully, who is actually the closest thing to an interesting character in the movie! I'm not joking, and even then he's still boring & annoying! All the characters are generic, annoying, stupid & completely useless & I just want them to shut up!

 

Songs: Remember in the Christmas review when I mentioned they used modern music? Well now it's a whole lot worse! I don't even think I can consider it a proper musical as there are only 3 songs, but here goes: We Wanna Hear From You is an absimal attempt of a pop guitar song with rap in it (I'm not joking) with awful visuals as it pressures Alise into talking as Odette attempts to get close to her. Get The Job Done is awful, pointless & insufferable, so moving on! The lullaby Always With You that Odette sings to Alise is probably the closest to the best, but even then the lyrics and melody are generic and really boring. All I'm gonna say is just mute them if you decide to watch it cos they're filler & are a massive waste of time (I'll give my verdict as to whether or not you should watch this now, as if the other 3 sections weren't that important!)

 

This. Is. Pure. Crap. What else is there to say? The story has completely jumped the shark, the animation is atrocious, the characters are completely generic & uninteresting and the songs are just tripe! The only recommendation I can give is to just stay away from this! It's just a cashgrabber with no creativity whatsoever & it completely disregards anything from the first film! You have no idea how hard it was for me to stomach any of what was going on and it actually makes me angry when I think about it! ven if the hand drawn sequels were pretty drab (and also rather ridiculous), I'd take them any day over this CGI crap! If you want an animated movie which has a focus on adoption in a positive light and is actually heartwarming & developed, then go and watch Despicable Me! Richard Rich, I'm sorry to say, but you have murdered your own movie AGAIN! There better not be another sequel because I can't take any of this anymore & we are only 2 movies in to this franchise! In fact, 2 is just 2 too many!

Story: 1/10

Animation: 1.5/10

Characters: 1/10

Songs: 2/10

Overall: 1/10