A CHRISTMAS PRINCE PART 3: THE ROYAL BABY (2019)

A CHRISTMAS PRINCE PART 3: THE ROYAL BABY has all the ingredients for an entertaining old-fashioned mystery: There's a theft and a long list of colorful suspects. Unfortunately, nothing is treated with the urgency it deserves. QUEEN AMBER & KING RICHARD don't order every suspect to stay in the palace until everything is solved. They don't even have to accuse anyone; they can tell them that it's dangerous due to all the snow. There are a lot of scenes of the characters going on with their daily lives, which are as clichéd and boring as the original and the 1st sequel. There's a time limit for the signing of a peace treaty between 2 kingdoms, but no one expresses any real hurry (not even when there's literally a minute left!). When AMBER is on labor, she doesn't struggle much when delivering her Agatha Christie type of speech in which she announces the thief(ves), their methods and part of their motive. While I admit that I wasn't able to guess who did it, once they're exposed, it's like nothing happened. No one is upset about such betrayal? I guess not, because there are others subplots to wrap up. I'm not kidding. The second the culprit(s) are taken away, certain characters finish a conversation from a previous scene. That being said, I appreciate it when light rom-coms that feature royalty make politics the central conflict, instead of portraying everything as a fairy tale (if that's what you want, use a fantastical and/or ancient setting instead of a modern-day grounded world). I also appreciate it when a franchise starts out focusing on specific characters as protagonists and gives the supporting characters more importance and screentime with each sequel to the point where an installment feels like an ensemble film. That's more welcome here because there are plenty of good actors in this cast, Richard Ashton being the standout.

3/10
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