Die Schwanenprinzessin und die fabelhafte Königsfamilie (Video 2014)

Die Schwanenprinzessin und die fabelhafte Königsfamilie: Directed by Richard Rich. With James Arrington, Laura Bailey, Joel Bishop, Joel Bishop. Prince Derek and Princess Odette adopt a little girl named Alise. Then, Alise gets captured by a group of flying squirrels, who believe that the Swan Princess is evil, according to a prophecy. Now, it’s up to Derek and Odette to save Alise, convince the flying squirrels Odette isn’t evil and defeat the evil Forbidden Arts.

“Of the Swan Princess films, the best one is by far the first one which I still find an enjoyable film now. The following sequels Secret of the Castle and Mystery of the Enchanted Kingdom were not great and had a fair bit wrong with them but had components too that made them watchable. The Swan Princess Christmas was hugely disappointing and a terrible film in general, it looked bad when advertised and the film was even worse. A Royal Family Tale is a marginal improvement over that film but was a big mess still, the only that works really is that the chemistry between Odette and Alise has moments where itu0026#39;s sweet, the scene with them in Aliseu0026#39;s room in the castle is actually quite touching.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe animation is not as horrendous as it was in Swan Princess Christmas but is still very bad, with the blocky character movements, at times creepy facial expressions, backgrounds that make plastic feel like they have more life and the incredibly flat colours it constantly looked like an outdated video game with no fluidity, vibrancy or detail. The music- like Christmas- makes no effort to be true to the style of the original film, something that the first two sequels did try to do, the incidental music doesnu0026#39;t always flow or fit, is sometimes paced ploddingly and has a real habit of drowning out the dialogue. And there is a very rushed-sounding and unnecessary song that is also immediately unmemorable and badly sung. The dialogue is really stilted with the few comedic moments sounding forced, the u0026quot;touchingu0026quot; parts sounding cloying and the darker parts being confusingly written and at worst potentially traumatising.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNone of the characters are interesting or likable apart from Odette, who may have lost her feistiness but shows a very admirable caring side. Derek is as wet as a drip(just as he was in the previous outings but he is at his blandest); Alise apart from that one scene with Odette is too sickly sweet; Uberta for the very first time is annoying; Rodgers, Speed and Puffin have next to nothing to do; the squirrels are over-used and Royal Family Tale has by far the worst villain of the entire Swan Princess series. Of Odetteu0026#39;s three animal sidekicks the only one to get a halfway-decent amount of screen-time is Jean-Bob and even he is at his least funniest. The voice acting is all over the place mostly, Ellie Deets is quite good but the rest either over-compensate or sound bored, Ben 10u0026#39;s Yuri Lowenthal is the most recognisable name but doesnu0026#39;t offer that much enthusiasm.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut it is the complete jumble that passes for a story where Royal Family Tale falls down most upon. The adoptive daughter subplot was such an accessible idea and could have been really sweet but was well and truly bland as a result of being completely drowned in the use of way too much false prophesising, peril and mythology that only succeeded in convoluting the story, as well as ploddingly paced scenes that lead to nowhere and donu0026#39;t have any relevance to the story. Essentially it is a paper thin story conceptually that also tries to do too much to make up for it and ends up feeling very muddled and almost incoherent in places. There is a real sense too that the film wasnu0026#39;t entirely sure what to do with itself or as to what the target audience, from where Iu0026#39;m standing much of it will go over the heads of children and adults will find it too dumbed down for them. Overall, The Swan Princess A Royal Family Tree is a marginal improvement over The Swan Princess Christmas but itu0026#39;s still a big royal mess(pardon the pun). 2/10 Bethany Cox”