The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale (2014)

Very well executed

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

***SPOILERS*** After the horrendous piece of junk called "The Swan Princess Christmas", ugh, just saying that hurts, this waste of money was made. Just why? The animation is still plastic-like CGI with stiff moves and awkward facial expressions. Obviously no effort was put into it, so why was it made? Not only that, but the story still contradicts what was established in the first movie: The Forbidden Arts is some kind of a supernatural entity with a mind of its own??? And Odette is apparently an enemy of flying squirrels who plan to destroy her after being manipulated by The Forbidden Arts. Even though I was thoroughly insulted by the Christmas piece of trash, I felt it even more with this one. It does not expand on the original story, it changes it completely! The plot about adopting this girl, Alise, was also painfully uneven and wasn't engaging. The rest is simply put: the music is forgettable generic pop tunes, perhaps a little less auto-tune than in the Christmas abomination, but not at all true to the roots of the original. The animal friends are just there for being there with the same recycled gags. The main characters are either annoying or just not engaging. This is a disgrace and a completely unnecessary sequel.

The first Swan Princess movie wasn't great but it was okay. I thought the same for the second and third movie. The Holiday movie I don't like but this one is even worse.The characters are all flat. They weren't developed anymore and just were stereotypes. The animation is awful. When 3D animation doesn't work it really doesn't work. They look like lifeless statues with hardly any movement or facial features. The voice acting isn't very good. The little girl doesn't seem to be trying and sounds like she wanted to go as soon as possible. The others either try to hard that's when it becomes annoying or they seemed like that read the script wrong and conveyed a different emotion. The story is pretty bad. They're are too many plot holes and questions.Sadly this is very awful. Nothing was trying to be good. Everything failed which brought this movie crashing down.

just when i thought this franchise couldn't get any worse, they had to make another one... and i was wrong, just dead wrong! okay, where the hell to start? well, might as well talk about some backstory. i've never been a fan of The Swan Princess, ever. even as a kid, i could see the movie was pretty bad. i didn't like it back then, i still don't like it today. then, despite being Crest Animation's biggest box office bomb to date, the movie still found a way to make crappier sequels. Swan Princess 2 was a bit of an improvement and obviously the best movie of the franchise, but that's not saying much. then, the franchise went downhill with the third movie, hit rock bottom with Swan Princess Christmas, and we got this. this, the worst one yet! it was literally so bad, it gave me flashbacks of the last abomination. and here's why:1) the writing. oh my god, the writing! if this movie would've been about Odette and Derek adopting a little girl, without any other s@#$%y subplots, this movie would've been at least tolerable. but no. no no no no! they had to turn it into one of the most convoluted fantasy stories ever, drowning the movie in the overuse of fake prophecies, magical stones, bland and boring mythology and non-stop peril that's gonna traumatize kids. add in the fact that this movie has terrible pacing where a lotta scenes go nowhere and are never resolved, i still have no idea how the hell they butchered it. 2) the animation. here's a tip for ya: if you have a movie that was made in 2D animation, making it CGI 4 movies in IS PROBABLY THE STUPIDEST DECISION EVER!!! who the f@#k thought this was a good idea? whoever it was, they should be fired immediately! you should NEVER do that! cause this movie looks UGLY! the characters look gross, up to the point of looking disturbing, the movements are stiff and the graphics suck, the backgrounds are lifeless, the flying squirrels are creepy to look at and everything else feels completely flat, like it came from a s@#$%y PS1 video game. 3) the characters. okay, these characters were NEVER good. there's no depth or development to any of them. but at least - AT LEAST - they've never been as bad and stupid as they were in here. honestly, i hate them even more right now. Derek and Odette are as bland and boring as ever, the side characters still suck, the flying squirrels are creepy and overused, Alice serves nothing to the plot (she never does anything) and it has the worst villain of the franchise.what the hell? The Swan Princess 5 is just terrible, spreading nothing but absolute boredom, with one of the most terribly written stories in an animated movie, awful animation, characters that get worse and worse with every movie, horrible pacing and the fact that the movie's only 79 minutes long but feels WAY longer than it should. it's the worst animated movie of 2014. avoid at all costs!!

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 it's sweet, the scene with them in Alise's room in the castle is actually quite touching.The 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 doesn'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 "touching" parts sounding cloying and the darker parts being confusingly written and at worst potentially traumatising.None 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 Odette'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 10's Yuri Lowenthal is the most recognisable name but doesn't offer that much enthusiasm.But 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 don'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 wasn't entirely sure what to do with itself or as to what the target audience, from where I'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 it's still a big royal mess(pardon the pun). 2/10 Bethany Cox