Stream It or Skip It: ‘A Royal Christmas on Ice’ on Great American Family, Where a Hockey-Loving Prince Falls for an Ex-Skater

Great American Family’s A Royal Christmas on Ice takes two staples of the holiday movie genre — ice skating and royals from European countries that are definitely not England — and puts them in a small town romcom. She’s a former Olympic hopeful and he’s a prince chasing a dream — and they’re on a collision course. Will these two make a perfect pair, or should ice-skating and secret-royals storylines stay separated?

A ROYAL CHRISTMAS ON ICE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Anna Marie Dobbins plays Abigail, a former Winter Olympics contender who suffered a career-ending injury… on live television. Now she teaches ice skating in her hometown of Evanston, but she dares not perform — even though performing would totally move tickets to her rink’s under-attended Christmas Ice Parade. Speaking of that at-risk rink, there’s a prince named John (Jonathan Stoddard) with designs on it. Prince John is obsessed with American ice hockey and, since he’s the millionth son and light years away from the throne, he wants to make a mark on the world by owning his own hockey franchise. I’m serious. While scoping out the town and the rink, Prince John — I mean, shhh, just John literally bumps into Abigail, kicking off an unexpected romance (and destroying the most beautiful plain, white sheet cake in all of Evanston). But how will Abigail react when she learns why John is really in town? And will Abigail ever find the courage to lace up a pair of skates in front of an audience?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Literally every secret-royals-at-Christmas holiday movie ever made spiced up with a dash of — thanks to an unexpected trans-Atlantic sports obsession — FX’s Welcome to Wrexham.

Performance Worth Watching: Jonathan Stoddard’s hair is truly something to behold. There’s a height to his mane that is incredibly impressive and maybe even distracting. The volume, the bounce, the mystery — that is truly a head of hair fit for a crown.

Memorable Dialogue: Abigail’s BFF trying to convince her to lace up and sell tickets to the Ice Parade: “Abby, you were almost famous! You still are!”

A Holiday Tradition: The ice rink holds an annual Christmas Ice Parade, which is part of a larger Winter Festival that also includes a Holiday Winter Festival Party and a food bank drive.

Two Turtle Doves: More like seven swans-a-swimming considering all of the royal Christmas content this year. In addition to A Royal Christmas on Ice, there’s The Royal Nanny on Hallmark (Nov. 12), Inventing the Christmas Prince on Hallmark (Nov. 18), A Royal Corgi Christmas on Hallmark (Nov. 25), Crown Prince of Christmas on Great American Family (Dec. 10), A Royal Christmas Match on UPtv (Dec. 10), and A Prince and Pauper Christmas on ION (Dec. 11) — which also stars Jonathan Stoddard!

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Not really, since the Christmas depicted in this film isn’t particularly royal. Come to think of it, I think the film ends before Christmas even happens? But y’know, the title does hit all the keywords: “royal,” “Christmas,” and “ice.” So what if the title’s a mashup of 2014 Hallmark movie and a 2020 Lifetime movie?

Our Take: The Christmas Prince really did a number on the holiday TV movie formula, didn’t it? The Netflix film’s surprise success in 2017 can still be felt today, as evidenced by the preponderance of royals that wander into small towns or have their castles infiltrated by normals every holiday season. It’s a sub-genre that’s practically a genre to itself, which is truly wild because I cannot think of a subject matter more diametrically opposed to the capabilities of holiday TV movies than royal families.

Holiday romcoms can do cozy. They’ve got pastoral on lock. They can do idyllic and, if they really spend money wisely, they can even do classy. But none of them, not even A Christmas Prince, can handle the opulence of royal life — even the generic monarchies of fictional European towns (or burgs, as is said in this film). Nothing highlights how low-budget all holiday romcoms are like a scene set at what’s supposed to be an analogue of Buckingham Palace. Instead, the royals live in a sparsely furnished big house and most of the men have shirts that fit.

I bring all this up to say that A Royal Christmas on Ice is a primo example of the very delicate balance that these holiday TV movies have to strike in regards to budget and premise. The simpler the premise (see: last week’s Catering Christmas, wherein a caterer… caters… a Christmas event), the smaller the budget. But the more outlandish a premise is, the bigger the budget needs to be — and a prince ditching his life as a royal in order to run a hockey team in Nowhere, America is a wild premise. Prince John’s valet says with a straight face, “He eats, sleeps, and breaths professional ice hockey.” Wild.

And then there’s the movie, which has decent performances (Dobbins in particular feels deserving of a comparatively luxurious Hallmark holiday vehicle) and a plot that is so outlandish that you can’t look away. But the script lacks wit, the cinematography lacks warmth, and then there’s the “beautiful” cake that gets ruined in Abigail and James’ first run-in. Characters keep describing it as beautiful and wonder if it’s even possible to recreate such a beautiful cake in time for the event… when it’s just a white sheet cake, the kind that’s stacked in the bakery of every grocery in America.

That’s kind of a metaphor for A Royal Christmas on Ice. It’s a holiday romcom that wants to be playful, romantic, and heartwarming, but it just doesn’t have the means to meet its dreams.

Our Call:  SKIP IT. If you love spending the holidays with royals, you’ve got six more movies coming up.