Can you believe that it was only back in 2017 that we were first introduced to the country of Aldovia and all of the crazy cast of people who lived there? It feels like we’ve known them forever. Mostly because A Christmas Prince was a massive cliche full of recycled plots and characters. The second film, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, was essentially the same film but with an extra 10 minutes of wedding footage. We hated them yet we loved them. It was like watching a car crash as the second film took all of the bits from the first film that became memes and reintroduced them a second time. Obviously taking away most of the humour. Although, it’s kind of great that a group of people making a film can be quite so self-aware. It makes a refreshing change for a film to embrace what makes it terrible and have absolutely no intention of being anything other than bad. So, despite everything, I’ve been looking forward to the third film in the series.

Has it only been a year since King Richard married native New Yorker, Amber, in the beautiful country of Aldovia? It’s insane to think that everyone’s favourite royal couple have only been joined in matrimony for 12 months. But they’ve managed to get a lot accomplished during those 12 months. Queen Amber is making her presence felt and the pair are a huge hit with the people of their kingdom. Something that has only been cemented now that Amber has her own perfect little baby bump. That’s right, if you hadn’t already figure it out by the title, the couple is expecting their first child. The heir to the throne of Aldovia is about to pop out and everyone’s excited.

Of course, this is the third film in the A Christmas Prince trilogy so we know it won’t be as straightforward as watching the pair attending birthing classes and learning how to change nappies. Oh no, there is a convenient and immensely important treaty that needs signing first. It’s an ancient treaty between Aldovia and their neighbours, Penglia, that is signed every 100 years to ensure their peace ensues. This year, the modern royals come face-to-face with the uber traditional King Tai and Queen Ming. When the treaty goes missing and the relationship between the two countries is threatened, the young King and Queen start an investigation to find the missing scroll.

Sounds tense, right? Although, not really. There is nothing about this film that isn’t obvious from the start. You can guess who took the treaty and all of the other red herrings are pretty pointless. This is the kind of film where you could write out the plot beforehand and then not impress anyone when everything you guessed came true. Plus, there are more than enough references to Meghan and Harry here to delight all of the Americans out there who love the British Royal Family. Though there was no introduction of the sex offender Uncle who has recently disgraced his relatives. Hopefully, that will crop up in the fourth one if there is one.

Don’t feat though, all of our favourite things are here. We have Amber’s amazing investigative journalism skills, the wolves are back, cousin Simon is the main suspect again, and the pair have their annual carriage ride. Plus, there’s Richard’s go-to in any stressful situation, hop on a horse. Seriously, there’s a moment when he goes to rescue someone and instead of driving one of the vehicles that the palace inevitably has at the ready, he jumps on a horse that is conveniently waiting for him. It’s so fucking insane. I love it.

I guess this film was exactly what I expected it to be. It’s silly and badly made. The story doesn’t really make sense and nobody really seems to be able to act. Or at least they don’t care enough about the film to try. Also, everything the characters do is stupid. There’s a scene in which two characters get trapped. Not only would it never have happened but the way they try to escape is stupid. To get a key on a nearby hook, the young princess uses her crutch to get it. All while her mother is standing watching. Why did nobody think ‘hmm why doesn’t the adult human use her longer arms to get closer to the key?’. Nope, that would be too easy. I like to think the writers wrote a film that made sense and then handed it over to someone else to make it as inconceivable as possible. But I guess that’s the reason anyone watches these films. We’ve only got ourselves to blame. The question really is, what does Martin Scorses think of Netflix’s Christmas output?