The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon Blu-ray features mediocre video and decent audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
When King Edvard (Chris Geere) and his new bride, Queen Paige (Kam Heskin), honeymoon in the idyllic
woodland of Belavia, they discover that Prime Minister Polonius (Todd Jensen) is secretly planning to ruthlessly
level the forest and drill for oil. Now the royal couple must fight for Belavia's lovely ecosystem before it is
destroyed forever.
It's of note to mention that by its very nature any review of The Prince & Me 3: A Royal
Honeymoon contains spoilers for the previous film, The Prince & Me 2: The Royal
Wedding, but considering the third film's title is itself a spoiler, it would seem a reviewer
has been given the right to proclaim that, yes, Prince Edvard (Chris Geere here, Luke Mably in
part
the deux and numero uno) and Wisconsin med student Paige Morgan (Kam Heskin in parts two
and three, Julia
Styles in the original) have indeed tied the knot at the end of The Prince & Me 2 and are
starting their
happily-ever-after journey together and, as the title of this film suggests, heading off for an
adventurous honeymoon that's bound to be filled with thrills, spills, chills, and plenty of
laughs...or
not. Neither as charming nor endearing as The Royal Wedding, A Royal
Honeymoon is saddled with a lackluster plot, paper-thin villains, predictable story arcs and
developments, and an environmentally-conscious message that gives the movie some direction
but feels monkey-wrenched into the plot to make the picture a bit more timely and, supposedly,
relevant outside its cushy little direct-to-video world.
'...and some action for the guys...'
Danish King Edvard (Chris Geere) and his new bride Paige (Kam Heskin) are on their way to the
fun and sun of the Caribbean for their much-deserved honeymoon, but at the last moment they
instead decide to
head to
the Danish protectorate of Belavia to escape a hounding press and fulfill Paige's wish for a white
Christmas. Not soon after they arrive does Paige run into an old high school flame, Scott (Adam
Croasdell), a journalist who happens to be working in the same area. The happy couple's
honeymoon is further interrupted by their uncovering of a plot to rid Belavia of much of her
natural resources in a search for oil underneath her forests; Danish Prime Minister John Polonius
(Todd Jensen) and his lackey Oliver (Joshua Rubin) find themselves under fire from none other
than King Edvard himself, angry not only because he wasn't consulted before bulldozing
Belavia's natural treasures, but because he and Paige both find the potential act reprehensible.
Along with Belavia's Prince Georgiev (Valentin Ganev), Edvard vows to prevent the sacking of the
land, but
Polonius, Oliver, and a third mystery ally do all they can to sabotage Edvard's stay in Belavia and
prevent him from intervening before the bulldozing can commence.
The history of the Prince & Me films is as convoluted as Danish law and the marriage of a
European nobleman to a nobody Wisconsin girl, with changing actors and actresses in every
movie,
sacrificing continuity but not exactly to the detriment of the pictures. Luke Mably was the only
major holdover in The Prince & Me 2, and now that he's abandoned the franchise, the
honeymoon sees two completely new people embarking on the wondrous journey of marriage
together, the couple of Mably and Julia Styles from the first film magically morphing into Chris
Geere and Kam Heskin for this third outing.
Fortunately,
continuity in cast isn't as important to these throwaway direct-to-video films as the promised
charm,
romance, and laughs, and while The Royal Wedding delivered just enough of all three to
be
a passable experience, A Royal Honeymoon fails to capture a similar spirit, the film a
more obvious attempt at milking a franchise rather than coherently and logically progressing the
story as presented in the original film. Then again, such is a rather unnecessary argument
considering that story matters little in such movies when compared to the need to arrive at the
expected happy ending, leaving but a singular factor to determine just how successful a movie
like
A Royal Honeymoon can be: entertainment value.
Unfortunately, the absence of charm and the surprising lack of humor outside the usual token
and unoriginal physical gags and verbal jokes leaves A Royal Honeymoon floundering in
most every scene, the picture settling into a stale and routine tone early on and never developing
into anything more than a third-rate third entry into a series that's but a
second-tier franchise to begin with. The picture hedges its bets on a dull villain and an even
duller central conflict, but for as routine and audience-friendly the film's environmentally
conscious overtones may be, the political message is fortunately kept to minimally invasive levels
and never becomes at all preachy. The weakest link in A Royal Honeymoon comes from
its
dreadful pacing; while its predecessor was a fun and quick if not somewhat unoriginal little
picture, its successor seems to play out as twice as long, the picture's oft-repetitive feel, dull
characters, and lame plot not helping matters much, either. Additionally, the performances are
all no better than merely satisfactory, from top to bottom the film showcasing acting that never
once goes beyond the necessary work to give the picture a halfway plausible feel and realistic
tone. On the plus side, A Royal Honeymoon is a far better-looking film than The
Royal Wedding; Director Catherine Cyran seems more confident and delivers a picture that's
somewhat more engaging from a visual perspective, and what seems a slightly larger budget
gives the movie a bigger feel, though it still retains something of a generic made-for-television
look about it.
The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon arrives on Blu-ray with a stable 1080p,
1.78:1-framed transfer. Proving far superior to the transfer accompanying The Royal
Wedding, A Royal Honeymoon's Blu-ray sports a better-defined and sharper picture,
though it still doesn't look worlds better than a very good unconverted DVD. The excess of noise
isn't quite as prevalent here, either, though some snow-covered vistas and other solid-colored
backgrounds do appear particularly
abuzz. Colors are more vibrant, too, and the transfer enjoys a semblance of depth that was absent
in the previous film's image. Faces are still rather pasty and flesh tones veer towards an
unnaturally pink shade, but they do offer more detail and texture than any seen in The
Royal Wedding. Though not even close to being even an above-average Blu-ray transfer, A
Royal Honeymoon nevertheless offers a fairly strong upgrade over its predecessor and doesn't
prove a total embarrassment on Blu-ray.
Much like The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon's high definition Blu-ray transfer, its
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack proves a serviceable but forgettable experience that's also a
slight upgrade over The Royal Wedding's soundtrack. The mix sports a token back-channel
support structure, particularly during its musical cues. Notes bleed into the back but the front
handles the bulk of the material with a surprisingly satisfactory and clear but never all that robust of
a presence. Musical delivery is smooth and distortion-free but plays out with a rather
inconsequential feel, the lossless mix delivering every note well but not exceptionally so.
Additionally,
the track boasts an occasionally hefty low-end accompaniment to various musical
numbers. Atmospherics are rather limited with, again, a few throwaway surround and directional
effects, but most of the track is cemented across the front. Finally, dialogue reproduction sharp,
clear, and consistently intelligible. A pleasant sonic experience, A Royal Honeymoon sounds
rather good on Blu-ray all things considered, and it makes for a nice little upgrade over the
fledgling soundtrack offered with the previous film in the series.
The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon delivers no extras of note, despite the back of
the box listing the presence of "The Making Of" and "Deleted Scenes." Aside from a collection of
480p previews for The Prince & Me 2: The Royal Wedding, Christmas Caper,
The Apostles of Comedy, Frank, and Finding Rin Tin Tin, the only relevant
extra here is The Dance Sequence (480p, 6:41), a collection of several scenes from the film
edited together and available to watch
without the hassle of finding them in the film. Considering this is hardly a "bonus," the disc
receives a
"zero" for its supplemental score.
Lacking the spirit and innocence of The Royal Wedding, The Prince & Me 3: A Royal
Honeymoon drags its heels and succumbs to an unwieldy plot, uninteresting characters, bland
acting, and a sluggish pace, all despite greater production values. With a cast that's now completely
revamped from the first film and a story that seems off-message and absent the spirit of the first
two pictures, The Prince & Me franchise appears to be on life support, but that hasn't
stopped the filmmakers from giving it one more go in The Prince & Me 4: The Elephant
Adventure (no, that's not a joke). If the series were still relevant, Fonzie's famous jumping of
the shark might have had to give way to Edvard's riding of the elephant as the go-to pop-culture
reference for a series that's lost its way and with no hope of a return to former glory. First Look's
Blu-ray
release is, from a technical point of view, far superior to The Royal Wedding, but it still
doesn't
offer a technical presentation that places it in the same league as the giants of the Blu-ray
format. Unfortunately, the promised bonus materials as listed on the packaging are nowhere to be
found, leaving this disc best enjoyed as a rental.
First Look Studios has announced that they are bringing 'The Prince & Me 2: Royal Wedding' and 'The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon' to Blu-ray on October 28th, the later being day-and-date with the DVD release. Both films are direct-to-video sequels to the 2004 ...
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