Stream It or Skip It: ‘The Knight Before Christmas’ on Netflix Proves Vanessa Hudgens Is Holiday Magic

Netflix’s The Knight Before Christmas is a movie with a premise so kooky that you just have to stream it. But does the movie actually live up to the pun-tastic title and fantastical premise? Or do stars Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse turn this into a new holiday classic, up there with The Princess Switch and A Christmas Prince?

THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Vanessa Hudgens plays Brooke, a science teacher from Ohio who’s unlucky in love and dealing with a bad breakup. Josh Whitehouse plays Sir Cole, a 14th century knight who’s transported to the present via a crone’s magic amulet and tasked with fulfilling a vague quest (hint: it has to do with his love life). If Christmas is all about mismatched strangers falling in love against a backdrop of snow and to the tune of carols, then it doesn’t get more Christmas-y than this.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: On the royal Christmas scale of fun, Knight Before Christmas is closer to The Princess Switch (also starring Hudgens) than A Christmas Prince—and thank god for that! This is also a fish-out-of-water comedy starring a gallant blond and a scientific brunette, so think of it as kinda Netflix’s A Christmas Thor. And yes, I’m fully aware that this is the second Netflix Christmas movie I’ve compared to Thor. I guess Thor’s really a romcom at heart?

Performance Worth Watching: Hudgens is, of course, a delight in this role, and brings an actual breadth of emotion to a part that could’ve—and in lesser hands would’ve—skated by with so much less. But I have to give this to her co-lead Josh Whitehouse, who takes hands down the hardest part to play (he’s a time-displaced medieval knight in a Netflix Christmas romcom!) and has so much fun with it. He has fantastic chemistry with everyone, especially Alexa. Yes, that kind of Alexa.

Memorable Dialogue: As Brooke’s sister Madison (Emmanuelle Chriqui) correctly puts it: “Aside from the fact that he believes he’s a knight from the 14th century, I’d say Cole’s the whole package.”

Our Take: The Knight Before Christmas is exactly the kind of holiday movie you want from Netflix, and I’d even go so far as to say it’s the best straightforward Christmas romcom the streaming service has ever turned out. The premise is delightfully batty, hinging entirely on the vague magic of an old crone, and the plot is completely predictable (will Sir Cole complete his mysterious quest by midnight on Christmas Eve? Yes, yes he will), but that’s the point—the cuddle-up-on-the-couch-with-some-[spiked?]-cocoa point.

The Knight Before Christmas accomplishes everything every movie in this genre sets out to do and then some. As with most movies like this, there’s an obligatory Christmas fundraising event, a sassy sister with a cute kid, and so much cross-promotion with other Netflix movies (you bet Sir Cole watches multiple scenes from Holiday In the Wild!). I died when a character said they got an ornament from Aldovia, the fictional country from the Christmas Prince franchise. Netflix is setting up a shared Christmas universe, and honestly, I’m here for it. Let’s get Brooke in the Princess Switch sequel and give Hudgens three roles to play in one movie!

But there are also moments where The Knight Before Christmas is way better than it has any right to be. There’s Hudgens’ natural delivery throughout, which crescendoes in the final act with some of the most legit looking heartbreak I’ve seen in one of these movies. And Whitehouse gets actual laughs as Sir Cole, which proves the Poldark player is ready for a sitcom. There’s even—and I can’t believe this—a dash of actual third-act peril that’s way more intense than those Christmas Prince wolves.

The Knight Before Christmas is a movie you should definitely watch every night between now and Christmas.

Our Call: STREAM IT. This is the real deal.

Stream The Knight Before Christmas on Netflix