The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale (2014 Video) User Reviews

Doesn't have the same charm as the original trilogy.

[Shopaholic35 · 5/10 · 1 January 2015]

The Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale just doesn't have the same charm as the original Swan Princess trilogy. It all went downhill when they upgraded to CGI animation. Sometimes modern animation techniques can hurt a movie if it looks like the animators weren't even trying which is what happened here. Aside from the animation the story is not bad. I would describe it as cute but there isn't too much substance or emotion. There were a few moments when the characters seemed to behave a little insensitively which seemed unnatural but it wasn't a big issue.

I also found it rather odd that they would break out in song at the weirdest moments. Sometimes you wouldn't have a song for ages and then all of a sudden you would have 3 in a row. Everything screamed lack of passion and laziness. It's a shame because The Swan Princess has such a legacy and the new instalments have lost what made them special.

A big royal mess but marginally better than Swan Princess Christmas

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 19 October 2014]

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that make plastic feel like they have more life and the incredibly flat colours it constantly looked like an outdated video game with no fluidity, vibrancy or detail.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

Way Below The Level To Be Even Called Worth Watchable

[FilmMan47 · 2/10 · 13 March 2014]

I think i have said it right it summary area this film is below the level to be even called worth watchable or average when you make a low budget film there are certain rules of it too one rule is to be very careful on the project as you don't have much money to waste on promotion,voice actors and to afford better animation,this film is one of the fourth or fifth sequel to a 1994 film the swan princess i haven't seen that film but that film was largely appreciated worldwide at that time but the director Richard rich keeps on making sequels and the result is in front of us.

The Plot:prince Derek and princess Odette adopts a girl she goes missing and gets kidnapped by squirrels now both the prince and princess must save her.

I cant talk about voice acting because you will hear almost nothing good from the actors as the loud music overshadows the dialogs,there is plenty of awful shaky animation and weird story if you have not see the original better watch it and avoid all sequels it will change your taste for animation i got tricked into watching this and believe me it is an absolute waste of time i am a 24 years old guy who likes good films even cartoons i am not comparing this to Disney and Pixar anyway this film could have been nice but all efforts are wasted may i ask why was this film even made.

Overall The Swan Princess:A Royal Family Tale 2014 is a solid mess i had a real bad experience watching it i have seen plenty of bad films since late 90s but this is beyond my brain my rating is 2/10:skipp it

this is insulting

[nathanielwsmith · 1/10 · 4 May 2019]

There was this time period between movies where actors acted everything and then there was a period where we made movies like marvel. this movie was probably made in the midst of that transition. or, this was made when movies gave up and hit rock bottom, this movie is below rock bottom. if anything, the best rating possible is 1 star. please dont show this movie to anyone unless you are trying to make mortal enemies. P.S. this review was written by my ten year old daughter. Literally.

Even Worse Than I Thought

[maykennon-64639 · 1/10 · 17 April 2015]

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.

so bad it's offensive!

[movienerd1095679 · 1/10 · 25 March 2015]

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!!

the WORST animated movie of the year so far!

[nikozguri · 1/10 · 26 May 2014]

another Swan Princess CGI garbage?! oh hell no! Richard Rich, why you keeping doing movies in this franchise? why don't you leave it to die already? unfortunately, for people like me, we get tortured again by the newest CGI garbage that goes by the name of "The Swan Princess 5: A Royal Family Tale"... and now, i'm having a really hard time figuring out which one's the worst: "Swan Princess Christmas" or "A Royal Family Tale". anyway, this one takes place sometimes after the last one: Derek and Odette adopt a little girl and all's good, for a little while. then, a bunch of flying squirrels kidnap the little girl, cause they believe in a "corrupted prophecy" that says the swan princess's evil, and for that they kidnap the girl so they can lure Odette to their hideout to kill her. 5 minutes in and we already have a big red flag. so, Derek and Odette go on a trip to save the little girl and Odette, and take down a supposed "evil spirit" called The Forbidden Arts. and this is the second movie in this franchise that almost made me change the channel for about like 20 minutes in. it almost happened in "Swan Princess Christmas" and it almost happened here again. and seriously guys, it's bad! not totally like "Legend of Hercules" bad, but it's up there. from the opening shot of the movie, i was like "god, i really hope this piece-of-s**t CGI gets better". no i was wrong, the CGI was completely terrible. compared to the last one, it was fixed a little. that still don't mean anything, it's still horrible. everything here looks like a cut scene from a PS1 video game, it's really THAT bad. and make it worse is that the movie's just a f***ing mess! i mean, everything here just so damn complicated that you can't tell what's going on. like where the hell did we get the magical changing diamond thing from? it's just randomly there, cause they NEVER mentioned it in the other movies. the whole plot's way too forced and complicated, it's not built and it gave me a serious headache. i was like "Oh, for f**k sake, will this thing stop?" and one of the biggest mistakes this movie makes is that it drowns itself in mythology, along with a lotta exposition. it's like it was trying to "Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit". and the characters... oh my god, the characters! this is probably one of the worst casts of characters i've ever seen! everybody in this movie's incredibly dull, stupid, uninteresting, unlikable, annoying and you don't even care what happens to them. hell, even the new characters suck ass. the little girl's completely shoehorned in the movie and she doesn't have depth or a personality whatsoever; the "scullions" are down right irritating and the villain's one of the worst baddies ever! this guy never does anything throughout the entire movie, aside from blowing up the little girl's house. and i'm done talking about it, for the sake of my sanity, i'm done!

final verdict: "Swan Princess 5" is just like "Swan Princess Christmas": ugly, boring, sloppy and just a complete mess. and with a way-too-messy script and terrible, unlikable and uninteresting characters (both old and new) just make the movie a absolute train wreck. so far, this is the WORST animated movie of this year! avoid at all costs!

Prince Derek and Princess Odette adopt a young girl named Alise. When she is kidnapped, they must save her before it is too late.

[Dreamerwriter15 · 8/10 · 19 April 2014]

I have always loved the Swan Princess series. It was my favorite movie as a little girl. Although I will conclude that the first movie is the best in this series, people are giving the sequels reviews that they do not deserve.

The introduction of the Scullions adds a new twist to the story. Talking animals are nothing new to this series, but the Scullions show that you believe what you are taught, no matter how absurd it may be.

The adoption of Alise allows us to see another side of Derek and Odette that we have not yet seen in the other movies and shows just how strong a parent's love can be for their child.

The Prophecy helps explain and clean up several loose ends not covered in the previous films. The Prophecy helps to show why the practitioners of the Forbidden Arts are always trying to kill Odette above all others.

The several instances of clean humor give comic relief to the rather serious nature of this movie over the others.

Although the voice actors have changed multiple times over the course of the series, they have been able to stay true to personalities the characters.

The songs in the movie were artfully done, but I wish that they had been more spread out throughout the movie, and that there were more of them.

The Animation has GREATLY improved since the last movie, especially in the rendering of the hair. One thing that I enjoy about this series, and Alise in particular, is that the animators made the characters look human, instead of giving the women large eyes or the children abnormally large heads as have been seen recently.

The Forbidden Arts as the villain gives us a BOSS level sort of movie, but the open ending allows for another few movies. It is possible that there are more sorcerers who practice the Forbidden Arts, or that the writers may add in a new power or Villain entirely.

No matter how much I love this series and all the movies however, I can not realistically see the series going for more than two or so more movies.

Who asked for this???

[Animany94 · 1/10 · 23 November 2017]

***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.

I love the swan princess no matter what 💖

[patbender · 3 April 2022]

I love the movie because it was awesome and amazing if u guys have your own opinion that's fine with me but I love the movie and the preduser did a great job in my opinion I'll always love the swan princess 💓