The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star

A third Princess Switch movie was unexpected and felt unnecessary. By now, there is an obvious struggle to keep the whole "lookalikes switching places" scenario feeling fresh. This becomes apparent as this story takes too long to get interesting. I even felt the lookalike illusion beginning to break as the three Vanessa Hudgens characters started feeling more like the same person. This third movie focuses very much on the newer lookalike introduced in the previous movie. This character isn't as charming as the first two lookalikes but she gets a sweet little romance story as she learns how to deal with past hurt. It's nice when this story becomes sentimental because the humor was falling flat and the build up to the climax wasn't drawing me in. Perhaps a big problem here is that the main characters that we've enjoyed from the first two movies take a back seat in this one.

This sequel manages to do what most sequels can't; be as good or even better than the first movie(s). I'm not really a fan of the princess switch, but I just enjoy watching feel good christmas movies in general, so I've watched all of these in a few weeks because they kept being recommended on Netflix. The first one was cringe but cute, the second one had a terrible script and ditto new characters, so I didn't have much expectations for this one especially because it was going to revolve around those characters. As a matter of fact, I thought I could watch for half an hour at dinner time and then go back to work and resume another day. But I just kept watching. Although it started of cringe again with very fake backdrops, lots of over the top smiles and lovey dovey stuff, and a plotline that seemed to be ridiculous, this movie ended up redeeming not only one of the worst characters, Fiona, but maybe even the entire series. It was still somewhat predictable, but way less than the first two. The acting was way better this time around by everyone, and especially Vanessa. I really liked the backstory of Fiona and Vanessa finally found chemistry with one of the male costars in Remy. They actually pulled off combining mindless Christmas fun with a sexy heist and I very much enjoyed the passionate tango versus the steamy laser dodging dance scene. There were also some great heartfelt moments. I would probably give it 7 normally, but it really took me by surprise that I enjoyed it way more than the first two so I'm giving it a bonus point.

The original Princess Switch is fantastic, but this one is great! I really love that we got more character development. It is also really funny, Fiona is really a hoot in this movie. But I didn't expect to cry either. Just watch it!