SummaryAlex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the President of the United States (Uma Thurman), and Britain’s Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) have a lot in common: Stunning good looks, undeniable charisma, international popularity … and a total disdain for each other. Separated by an ocean, their long-running feud hasn’t really...
SummaryAlex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the President of the United States (Uma Thurman), and Britain’s Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) have a lot in common: Stunning good looks, undeniable charisma, international popularity … and a total disdain for each other. Separated by an ocean, their long-running feud hasn’t really...
It’s not easy to make an amusing, accessible diversion that mixes LGBTQ positivity and national politics, but “Red, White & Blue” passes the test with flying colors.
Overall, in spite of its stumbles, Red, White & Royal Blue is a charming and diverting rom-com that introduces a welcome new viewpoint to the long-running genre — and Alex and Henry's journey to love is sure to please both longtime fans of McQuiston's novel as well as newer arrivals who are looking for a mostly solid entry point into romance itself.
First-time director Matthew López gets us rooting for the cheeky couple’s transition from rivals to romantic bedfellows, boosted by the cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, who photographs the leads so adoringly that you half-expect them to turn to the camera and hawk a bottle of cologne. Thanks to their playful chemistry, we’re sold.
While the film never really finds its voice outside of the source material, lacking development and a finer tuning to its new medium, 'Red, White & Royal Blue' might still be the most deliciously fun and excitingly sexy romcom of the year.
There’s nothing new about this queer romance between a president’s son and a prince of England except the way it skips the sorrow to favor the joy. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But for audiences eager to connect instead of divide at the movies, it's about time.
A feel-good fairy tale that collapses under the weight of its own silliness, Red, White and Royal Blue is a gay rom-com that dazzles visually but defies all attempts at anything resembling plausibility.
Matthew López’s take on the story suffers from breakneck pacing, shallow characterizations across the board, and filmmaking choices that sometimes baffle, and sometimes betray the film’s low budget. It’s a disappointing, slapdash cash-in that does a disservice not only to McQuiston’s book, but the genre it’s part of.
Adapting a book into a movie is an intricate dance of preserving its essence while making necessary cinematic edits. Given that the typical film spans only 90 to 100 minutes, it’s unrealistic to expect every nuance of the book to be mirrored on screen. ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ masterfully rises to this challenge, standing as a stellar film in its own right and paying homage to its literary origins. It’s fun, feel-good, and possesses sufficient depth to be appreciated as a work of art in its own right.
It's fun, campy, kitschy, silly, sexy, melodramatic, and completely predictable. Our two leads have fantastic chemistry, Uma Thurman and Stephen Fry obviously had fun making this. The perfect film to simply unwind from a long, hard day. (I will rewatch this or even read the book.)
A predictable but very charismatic sugar water cliché. The film has a typical construction of films of this genre, it is a story with a very predictable outcome. The cinematography of the film is very good and the photography is quite sophisticated, sometimes even evocative, matching the lives of the characters. The main plot involving the novel is well constructed. The performances of the two main actors are good and their characters, despite being different from each other, end up complementing each other, and they also have a lot of chemistry. In general, the supporting characters are good even though they don't have focus. The other parallel plots are well developed and everything there has motivation, they are not matters thrown in just to complement. It's a little film that's nothing different but well produced and very enjoyable to watch.
There are three things necessary to make a **** romantic comedy work: It needs to involve a readily recognizable **** relationship, it needs an undeniable sense of romance and it has to be funny. However, this heavily diluted, glacially paced piece of insipid celluloid fluff has none of the above, and it truly escapes me how many critics and viewers have found this utterly bland exercise to be heartwarming, charming and involving. In telling the somewhat far-fetched story of an alleged romance between a British prince and the son of an American president who start out as comically exaggerated adversaries but end up supposedly finding true love with one another, writer-director Matthew López subjects his audiences to an unconvincing relationship wholly lacking in chemistry and stemming from an improbable courtship, much of which arises from a string of all-too-convenient, less-than-discreet engagements that are otherwise supposedly impossible to arrange and coordinate. What’s more, the film’s humor is virtually nonexistent and incorporates none of the edginess generally associated with **** comedies. In fact, it’s so dull and so safe that it makes most Hallmark Channel movies seem downright risqué by comparison. To its credit, the picture makes some modestly eloquent statements about LGBTQ+ equality (even if they’re nothing we haven’t already heard many times before), and it features a fine supporting performance by Sarah Shahi as a smart-mouthed, fast-talking presidential aide (arguably the only genuinely funny element in the film), but it misses the mark on so many other fronts that it’s hard to believe this project ever got green-lighted. It’s a shame that the door opened by “Bros” (2022) to make **** romcoms a more viable cinematic genre has been set back by this underwhelming effort. It’s also equally disappointing that an organization like Amazon Studios – one known for generally doing solid work – could let something as sub-par as this out into the movie marketplace. Let’s hope moviegoers can put this one quickly behind them and see the foregoing issues soon fixed going forward.