The Swan Princess Christmas came in the mail yesterday and honestly, it's not
that bad. That said, it's not good either: it's boring, sappy, and hideous to look at, but it has a few redeeming points. Namely, the characters are true to their prior incarnations (at least personality-wise), the story's solid if recycled, and it did manage to bring out a few chuckles out of me.
As pointed out before, the animation is the worst part of the movie. Contrary to what it says on the back cover, the animation is not "beautiful" in the slightest. On the other hand, it's not really Barbie-movies atrocious either. The characters look and move like rubber, but they have been given some subtle mannerisms that are sadly underplayed. Some effort was made for the leads' hair – it's more realistic than the hair of other characters, but it has a tendency to move on its own, even when the leads are standing still. Odette looks dreadful – she's constantly off-model compared to Odette from the previous three films; her dried grass-like hair (both in color and looks) doesn't help things either. Background characters are even worse; they move like they're made out of pudding.
Story is a mix of the original
Swan Princess,
The Return of Jafar and probably every other Christmas movie ever made. In other words, a typical holiday cheese-fest (the villain gets defeated by
the Christmas spirit, joyously expressed in a song sung by a distressed Odette. Gag). Still, there are some good characterizations and characters aren't as stupid or daft as they tend to get in these DTV productions; they actually make some in-movie meta-references and address some of the movie's more obvious plot-holes, which really took me by surprise. It has been given a PG rating ("for mild violence and threat"), though I don't think there's anything in it that would scare or disturb even the littlest of children (except maybe seeing Chamberlain and old hag/Bridgit kiss three times over the course of the movie
, or
this 
).
Continuity-wise, I'm not really sure where this would be placed in regards to the rest of the series. End credits identify it as a "Swan IV" production (btw, the production team is the same as for the other three movies), but the actual story plays out as if it happens some time after the original (Odette and Derek celebrate their first Christmas together, whereas they celebrated their first marriage anniversary in
Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain). Anachronisms are everywhere: light-bulbs and snowboarding play a part in the plot, and black people apparently lived in medieval European kingdoms like it was not a big deal (to be fair, it's something the original
Swan Princess suffered from as well - yay for political correctness!).
The music… Ugh, the music… It's beyond horrendous. Mushy, moronic lyrics and auto-tune abound. Fortunately, the songs don't last for long and the original
Swan Princess theme makes a short appearance.
Also, CGI Jean-Bob is now a mascot of Nest Animation.
Overall, it's a generally weak effort that is further bogged down by ugly visuals. It's not a bad way to spend an hour and a half, but you'd probably get bored quickly. It is meant for kids after all. As for older crowd, I'd recommend it to fans and completists only.
