If you have only seen the first Princess Switch movie, you probably wouldn’t even believe all that goes on in the next two movies—especially the third. 

In the first movie, baker Stacey De Novo takes a trip to the royal city of Belgravia, switches places with a Duchess, and long story short, they fall in love with each other’s guy. In the second movie, Stacey gets coronated and Kevin and Lady Margaret finally solidify their relationship despite multiple plot twists caused by Lady Margaret’s lookalike cousin, Fiona. 

Now, in the third Princess Switch movie, The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star, Fiona, previously sent away to perform community service for her devious acts involving attempting to steal the throne, is summoned to help her two lookalikes—all played by Vanessa Hudgens—retrieve a stolen Christmas Star from a wealthy man who also happened to be Fiona’s ex-boyfriend. 

While the first two movies revolved around the idea of finding romance in unlikely places, this one unquestionably takes a different approach and turns the former romance series into more of a spy film. 

Though both Stacey and Margaret were hesitant to involve the flamboyant partygoer in their quest, she proved to be the only option, as she had friends on the other side per se. 

Is it weird that I find it ironic that the star of the third movie wasn’t even brought into existence until the second movie? 

This movie highlights Fiona in all her blazing glory. I believe Netlflix felt like they needed to show a side of forgiveness and fix Fiona’s broken nature after giving her such a bad reputation in the second movie. 

So, their solution was to show how she is afraid to grow too close to someone due to the fear that they may leave her—a fear that stemmed from her mother leaving her at a boarding school when she was a young child. 

This is certainly a theme that continues to be overdone and overused in the realm of feel-good movies. It all ends well, of course. 

I think it’s nice that Fiona was granted her moment in the spotlight, but I felt robbed of getting to see the other two doppelgangers’ evolutions. In the second movie, Stacey and Prince Richard seemed to tease a royal baby on their minds, and I was slightly disappointed that this was not carried out in the third movie. Maybe in the fourth if it comes into fruition? 

As I did when I reviewed the second Princess Switch movie about a year ago, I must praise Vanessa Hudgens for her flawless job at portraying three very different characters all in one movie. 

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that Hudgens was a triplet, and each sister had their own personality. But no, Hudgens had to channel many different emotions and characteristics into each character even though she is only one person, and she did a brilliant job. 

The movie overall was, for lack of a better word, fine. 

At some points, it was honestly a little hard to follow. There always seemed to be a lot going on which, normally for a movie, is a good element to have, but in this case, they could’ve toned down the chaos a little bit. 

Also, I felt as though in between the high-action scenes some scenes could be seen as unnecessary banter between characters to act as a filler. Fiona does a lot of flirting with some of the men as she fishes for information or tries to create a distraction, and I feel like this could’ve been done differently; maybe they could’ve involved a more sneaky technique rather than the tired interrogation. 

There was plenty I enjoyed about this thrilling third movie, and also some elements I am a little picky about. Regardless, I feel like any fan of the Princess Switch franchise will love the continuation of the three lookalikes that are always involved in some sort of adventure.