In the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Anwyn has been in a war against the Lothian Kingdom for three hundred years… To bring peace to the kingdoms, Prince John will marry the Lothian Princess Gwendolyn… However, on the day of the wedding, Prince John is caught with a peasant woman, and the Lothian King and Queen curse Prince John and his wizard servant Rodney, to be turned into frogs for all eternity. The spell will only be broken if a maiden kisses John and marries him. Five hundred years later, John and Rodney are still frogs. By pure chance, thespian Margo kisses John in the park, Rodney and he become men again. John seeks out Margo to marry her and end the curse, and they meet the gorgeous Kate, who helps them. John knows that he must marry Margo, but he soon finds himself falling in love with Kate.
– Claudio Carvalhos (Summarized), IMDB
Prince Charming is brought to us by Director Alan Arkush, who is best known for his work as director/producer on various TV series. His previous works include Heroes (2006) and Crossing Jordan (2001). The film stars Sean Maguire as the titular Prince, and Christina Applegate as his love interest Kate. Prior roles for Christina Applegate include the Anchorman series, Bad Moms (2016), and the CGI Alvin and the Chipmunk sequels, where she voices Chipette Brittany. Prince Charming was produced by Hallmark Entertainment, and was first premiered in 2001 in Peru, Australia, and Belgium, before being released in the U.S. in 2003.
As one might expect, I usually don’t run into a lot of sex scenes in the Princess movies I showcase. Even the raunchiest of my movies tend to just show a bit of nudity. Prince Charming is one of the exceptions to this, with the aforementioned peasant encounter from the intro up above.
The Prince spies a random peasant women being forcefully taken away by a few thugs, and ever the hero the Prince take after them in hot pursuit. Following them up a bell tower, the Prince dispatches with the ruffians and is then rewarded for his efforts with some private time with the peasant woman, right up against the tower’s large bell. We then cut to the outside of the bell tower where we hear the bell gong faster and faster, with the townspeople looking on in confusion. So to be fair, you don’t see any of the action on screen, but the implication of what’s going on rings loud and clear. I might need to add an “Adult situations” tag for movies like this where there’s no nudity but there’s scenes that are meant for the older crowd.
One thing about that scene that stuck out to me (Aside from the bell gonging), was that it reeked of a set-up. I was honestly expecting there to be a scene revealing the Lothian king knew about the Prince’s lothario nature and staged the whole peasant rescue as an excuse to break off the wedding. In hindsight this would’ve been a really convoluted plan (The King could’ve just sent a peasant woman directly to the Prince to tempt him, there was no need for the heroics), but it was the only way I could rationalize how weirdly forced the whole scene felt.
As you might expect with a story of two displaced medieval men in modern day New York, there’s a few jokes about the Prince and Wizard being fish out of water. For the most part though they adapt fast to the modern world. I guess it helps that they have been living through the last 500 years, albeit as frogs. Presumably they’ve picked up the gist of the modern world, even if the specifics were still a bit alien.
At one point in the movie the Prince finds out that, after he was turned into a frog, his father ended up dying in a war started by the Kingdom of the Princess the Prince spurned. Once we learned this fact I thought I had the rest of the movie pegged. I figured that the Wizard was going to cast some sorta time travel spell, the Prince would go back in time having learned his lesson, preventing his father’s death in the process, and Kate would just so happen to run into his identical ancestor in modern day New York (Something akin to the ending of so many versions of the Nutcracker). This theory was bolstered by how the Princess and the Prince’s modern love interest Kate are played by the same actress. Colour me surprised to find out that the Prince remained in modern times! Sorry King, guess your fate was sealed long ago.
All in all this one was a pretty entertaining watch. I’m definitely going to be checking out more of Hallmark’s film library to see if there are any other gems like this one.
Bad Princess Movies 
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