REVIEW: One, two, THREE Vanessa Hudgenses?
What’s better than one Vanessa Hudgens? Two!
But are three Vanessa Hudgens even better than two? Not if you are looking for a movie plot with substance.
The Princess Switch: Switched Again is the sequel to Netflix’s 2018 The Princess Switch starring Hudgens (“High School Musical”) in dual roles as Stacy De Novo, a humble American baker who just wants to win a baking contest, and Lady Margaret, who is betrothed to a prince she doesn’t really want to marry.
Haven’t seen the first movie? That’s okay! The sequel starts off with a handy recap (by none other than Hudgens as Stacy– who else?) Basically, after some switching of roles and swapping of men, both of Hudgens’ characters find themselves in happy relationships.
The first movie in The Princess Switch franchise left me dreaming about finding my own doppleganger to become besties with, and in between the cheesy Christmas themes and bad accents (I mean really bad), there’s some interesting character development.
Adding a third look-alike– Fiona, Lady Margaret’s evil cousin– left little room for substance or character development in the sequel and it feels like the writers tried to include more story lines than they could handle.
Fiona has an air of chaos and self-importance that follows her much like her two groupies. You can tell she is evil because of her long blonde hair and dramatic contour, sultry voice and overly comedic henchmen.
When she attempts to steal the throne from Lady Margaret (or maybe Princess Stacy?) things get messy.
Let’s just say there’s definitely some switching and the bad accents get even worse… who would have guessed? It’s all pretty predictable, but these movies are set up to be fun, cute and easy to watch… in other words, predictable.
I enjoyed watching Margaret and Stacy work through their relationship struggles, but I wish there was more substance to the romances. I wanted more of the sweet family dynamic that Margaret, Kevin (Nick Sagar) and his daughter Olivia (Mia Lloyd) had in the first movie. And I wanted Prince Edward (Sam Palladio) to have a bigger purpose than Olivia’s babysitter.
But I can’t be too mad at the writers!
Fiona and her minions add comedic value to the sequel and set it apart from the other Christmas rom-coms that flood our Netflix suggestions.
I just hope we’ve seen the last look-alike… I fear someday there will be enough Vanessa Hudgenses to make a baseball team. And all of them will be princesses.
Overall, The Princess Switch: Switched Again was a classic Netflix Christmas movie that could possibly help Hudgens reach the well-coveted position of Christmas Movie Queen.
With a score of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, it will probably be one of the most popular movies of the season.