2.5/10 What is essentially a Hallmark movie made by Netflix, “A Castle for Christmas” will be loved by your drunk aunt on Christmas but any legitimate film fan will want to avoid this lump of coal. First off, if you have seen the trailer for this movie, then you’ve already seen the entire movie. The plot is silly, the events are completely predictable, secondary characters get no development and the script is laughable. Before I dig deeper into why this movie should be avoided, I will give it some credit. The pacing is well done so paired with its shorter running time, you won’t have to suffer for too long. If you don’t care about the quality of the movie (which is millions of people judging by how well the “Fast and the Furious” movies do at the box office), then this is light hearted fluff that will put you in the Christmas spirit. Cary Elwes surprisingly pulls off his Scottish accent and some of the scenery is rather beautiful. That being said, none of those positives justify what feels like a rejected Lifetime Original Movie. This has one of the worst soundtracks I’ve heard in recent memory with the first few songs sound like Zooey Deschanel having a stroke. I can’t stress enough how downright cheesy this movie is. And not in a “so bad it is good” type way like “Sharknado”. In just a bad way. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Netflix original movie without some forced diversity. A gay character gets forced in for no reason except to check that diversity box. His entire personality is that he is gay and we literally learn nothing else about him. I have no problem with gay films as I enjoyed well developed characters in “Brokeback Mountain” and “Moonlight” but when you just shove a gay character in for no reason, it is extremely cringe worthy and unnecessary. There is also a line in the movie from a hotel worker claiming how the room package offers “all the Netflix you can binge” which was just a self-masturbatory moment for Netflix to pat its own back. There is no humor, characters make terrible decisions, half of the scenes are over the top, the movie is completely forgettable/disposable and I couldn’t wait for it to end. Netflix often has a problem of “we need as much content as possible” so they keep greenlighting terrible scripts just to get content out there, no matter what the quality. With plenty of Christmas films to choose from, you will want to avoid this lazy, predictable movie that belongs on the naughty list.
#DukeIAmYourBother / #TheBrookeOfLove / #RealEstateAgentsOfShields / #TheStoryOfDuke / #AHassleForChristmas / #OffKilt
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