Royal Review - The Prince and Me 2: The Royal Wedding (2006)

Plot (in a nutshell) Just weeks before their wedding, newly crowned King Edvard (Luke Mably) and his American fiancée Paige Morgan (Kam Heskin, replacing the far superior Julia Stiles) find their relationship — and the Danish monarchy — in jeopardy. Edvard's childhood friend, Princess Kirsten of Norway (Clemency Burton-Hill), comes for a visit and plots to try to steal Edvard from Paige. At one point Princess Kirsten teaches Paige how to say something in Danish. When Paige is asked to say something in Danish she says what Kirsten taught her and we come to find out the Paige has just called the Queen a green donkey! (Actually according to Wikipedia, she actually says in Danish is that the Queen is a prostitute that urinates on dogs. Which must have made audiences in Denmark howl. Actually they probably howled at this whole movie, the ones who weren't seriously offended). The royal family is very offended.

An old law is also brought to light by Prince Albert of Norway, Kirsten's father, seeming to require Edvard to marry a Scandinavian noblewoman or princess or relinquish the crown (Again not true, the only requirement is that he or she become a Lutheran, the Danish State Church). The stress caused by the law and Princess Kirsten, Paige and Edvard to break up. When Princess Kristen hears of the break up she see a chance to become queen of Denmark. Paige decides to stay in Denmark to finish her semester at medical school. During the "wedding" planning of princess Kristen and Edvard, Paige is able to find a loophole in the succession law with the help of her friends. The newer law states that the blood requirement is null and void if Paige can demonstrate knowledge of the Danish Constitution by reading it in Danish before the Parliament. Luckily the Danish Parliament is present at the wedding, the Constitution is read (Paige actually reads the first 2 sections and the last section of the actual Danish Constitution), and the happy couple marries.

Gotham Gal says: This movie is a direct to video sequel to the earlier The Prince and Me which starred Julia Stiles as Paige Morgan.  The original film was a sort of contemporary version of that old chestnut The Student Prince.  The Denmark in the film bares little resemblance to the actual country, it is more like Denmarkland at Epcot Center (if there were one).  After seeing the original film, I had to wonder if the filmmakers knew that Denmark has an actual monarchy which is the oldest in the world (not 5,000 years as the Bishop announces in the film but 1,200). The current monarch is Queen Margarethe II and she clearly has no plans to abdicate the way King Harold does in the original film because he has heart problems (which clearly have been fixed by the time of this film).

This film is almost a retread of the first film with two exceptions, the comical villains of Prince Albert of Norway and his daughter Princess Kirsten, who are so obvious, it's not even funny. The film didn't even need Prince Albert or the silly loophole. The contrast between Princess Kirsten, who is royal vs. Paige, the American would have been enough.  An interesting film would have been Paige and Edvard butting heads over European royal traditions concerning a wedding vs. Paige's more modern interpretation. For example, will she say the word obey? If you were going to have this comical villain in Princess Kirsten, why not have her embarrass Paige at her hen night?  Paige is going to medical school during the film, that's a great conflict but apart from making her miss one press conference, it's pretty downplayed.  It would have been nice if they had talked about how Paige was going to finish medical and practice while being Queen of Denmark (and by the way, why was Paige being called Crown Queen, when she and Edvard weren't even married? And what kind of title is Crown Queen, it should just be Queen).

What made the original film so charming was the contrast between Wisconsin bred Paige and Edvard at college where he's out of his element and then taking Paige to Denmark where she was out of her element and whether or not the two worlds could mesh.  This film would have been 100 times better if the writers had focused on that instead of a silly rom-com plot that has been done a million times.  Kam Heskin (Sunset Beach, and the Mormon version of Pride & Prejudice) is not nearly as accomplished an actress as Julia Stiles, but she has a warmth and a charm that Stiles lacks.  The one thing that hasn't changed is that Paige is clearly the brains of the two.

The film spawned 2 more sequels: The Prince and Me 3: Royal Honeymoon and The Prince and Me 4: Elephant Adventure. You just know that The Prince and Me 5: Royal Baby is waiting in the wings. Luke Mably, wisely, ditched this series after this film and was replaced by another blonde British actor named Chris Geere. Despite the fact that The Prince and Me 2 is nto nearly as good as the first film and bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever, I ate this film up like a diabetic at an all you can eat dessert buffet.  Seems like a good idea at first, but then you get nauseous.