The Knight Before Christmas VS The Princess Switch

It’s a battle of the Vanessa Hudgens holiday rom-coms! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re pitting two Netflix original Christmas movies against each other: “The Knight Before Christmas” and “The Princess Switch”.

For this showdown, we’re gonna figure out if it’s the “Princess” or the “Knight” who reigns supreme!

Round 1: Plot

Before we start comparing these two films, let's first explore the stories told in each one.

Released in 2018, “The Princess Switch” stars Vanessa Hudgens playing not one but TWO different characters: Stacy DeNovo, a Chicago pastry chef and Margaret Delacourt, Duchess of Montenaro. Stacy finds herself competing in a baking competition in the Kingdom of Belgravia where she runs into Margaret, who is engaged to be married to Crown Prince Edward of Belgravia. The two are basically identical, and when Margaret suggests that the two switch places so she can have a few days out of the spotlight, Stacy reluctantly agrees. After the switch takes place, there are plenty of hijinks, and both women realize that they could actually see themselves settling into the roles that they’re temporarily embodying. There’s romance too, but more on that later.

Considering the success of “The Princess Switch”, Netflix employed Hudgens for another holiday film for the 2019 season. In “The Knight Before Christmas”, she plays Brooke, a high school science teacher from Bracebridge, Ohio who is getting over a breakup. We simultaneously meet Sir Cole, a 14th century knight who finds himself magically transported to the present day by an old crone. The two meet when Brooke almost runs over Cole while she’s driving and then takes him in because she believes him to have amnesia from the accident. Romance ensues, Brooke starts to believe Cole is actually a medieval knight and the audience has to wait to figure out if he’s going to stay in the present or not.

While both of these stories are definitely compelling, we have to say that the premise for “The Knight Before Christmas” is a little more out there, and therefore more intriguing.

WINNER: “The Knight Before Christmas” 1 / “The Princess Switch” 0

Round 2: Main Characters

Now that we’ve learned about the stories, let’s do a deep dive into the main characters in each film.

Brooke from “The Knight Before Christmas” is a small town girl who cares about her students and her family, and has been unlucky in love. She doesn’t believe in fairy tale happily ever afters, and certainly isn’t waiting for a knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet. But WAIT! An actual knight ends up showing up in her life and he’s cute and gallant and of course believes in old timey chivalry. His fish out of water bit is pretty adorable, as he shows awe over so many everyday things in Brooke’s modern world.

While “The Knight Before Christmas” follows just one couple, “The Princess Switch” has two. We’ve already talked about Stacy and Margaret, but let’s tell you a bit more about the men in this movie. When Stacy goes undercover as a Duchess, she meets Prince Edward, Margaret’s fiance. Margaret may have been lukewarm about him (and we admit he isn’t the most charismatic prince we’ve ever seen), but Stacy brings out his lighthearted and fun-loving side. While Stacy is off with a prince, prim and proper Margaret is learning what it’s like to live among the simple folk. She meets Stacy’s friend and business partner Kevin, who she quickly falls for because he’s such a sweet and caring guy.

Honestly, we love the characters in both these movies but because there are two couples to fall for in “The Princess Switch”, that’s who we’re giving our point to.

WINNER: “The Knight Before Christmas” 1 / “The Princess Switch” 1

Round 3: Side Characters

The cast of characters is kept pretty small in “The Knight Before Christmas”, with Brooke’s family making up most of the personalities in the story. Emmanuelle Chriqui plays Madison, Brooke’s sister, and seemingly her only friend. Madison has a daughter named Claire who figures prominently in the story, in one notable scene finding herself stuck on a precariously frozen lake during a storm. Cole has to save her, which helps Brooke fall in love with him, of course. Brooke’s family isn’t the most interesting bunch, and there aren’t many other characters who appear, except for Officer Stevens.

“The Princess Switch” features a broader cast, including the prince’s parents, King George and Queen Caroline as well as the king’s butler, Frank. It also features an adorable and somewhat precocious young girl in Kevin’s daughter Olivia, who dreams of being a ballerina. In fact it’s a dance program for Olivia that motivates Stacy to do the switch in the first place. There’s also the villainous Brianna who is the defending champion of the baking competition and who threatens to sabotage Stacy’s performance.

Because of the more expansive cast and more compelling minor characters, we’re giving the point here to “The Princess Switch”.

WINNER: “The Knight Before Christmas” 1 / “The Princess Switch” 2

Round 4: Romance

Considering these are romantic movies, we’ve gotta rate the romance! While all of these love stories are a bit cheesy, we can still pick a favorite.

Interestingly, although Stacy and Edward are clearly supposed to be the primary couple in “The Princess Switch”, we find ourselves being more convinced by the romance between Kevin and Margaret. It seems like these two actually have lots more chemistry, and we believe them as a couple. Also who can forget that scene where Kevin comes looking for toothpaste with his shirt off and Margaret basically can’t pick her jaw up off the floor? There’s clearly something special between these two, but Stacy and Edward leave us feeling a bit tepid. Sure their romance is sweet, but it’s not particularly memorable.

In “The Knight Before Christmas”, we get to see a time travel love story, and we’ve gotta admit we’re suckers for the genre. What’s more compelling than a man and a woman from different times who manage to find common ground despite all of the discrepancies in their world views? It’s charming as hell watching Cole put his 14th century moves on Brooke, and his boyish good looks certainly don’t hurt. We get to see this medieval guy binging Netflix movies and trying his best to fit in all while asserting that he’s actually a time traveller. The chemistry between these two is convincing, despite the entire movie being a little chaste.

Because the romance is split in “The Princess Switch” between two couples, and one of the love stories wasn’t particularly inspiring, we’re giving this point to “The Knight Before Christmas”.

WINNER: “The Knight Before Christmas” 2 / “The Princess Switch” 2

Round 5: Realism

Considering both of these movies include some pretty fantastical storylines, let’s compare how realistic they are, and take into account how well each film did at building a convincing world for the audience.

“The Princess Switch” involves an identical strangers plotline, which to begin with, isn’t the most realistic storytelling device. Many stories like this one involve long lost twins, but Stacy and Margaret are only potentially distantly related, which doesn’t exactly explain them looking exactly the same. Margaret speculates that one of her ancestors ran off to America at some point, and a deep dive would make these two fourth cousins at most. The other unrealistic aspect is that more people don’t realize that they’ve switched places. Considering how well Kevin knows Stacy, we don’t really buy that he didn’t feel like something was up.

While the plotline of “The Princess Switch” is vaguely plausible, there’s nothing realistic about “The Knight Before Christmas”. Namely because time travel hasn’t been invented (yet). But hey we’re here for the time travel concept, so let’s go deeper into how convincing the filmmakers were with the plot point. One of the biggest issues we have is how easily Cole seems to settle in to modern life. He doesn’t seem particularly frightened by the cars zooming by him or the other modern technologies that are used throughout the story.

Technically, “The Princess Switch” is more realistic, but more importantly, as the movie goes on you don’t find yourself questioning the story or trying to poke holes in it. The creators manage to build a convincing set up that lets us suspend our disbelief.

WINNER: “The Knight Before Christmas” 2 / “The Princess Switch” 3

It looks like “The Princess Switch” takes this one with a victory of 3 to 2.

Which of these movies did you prefer? Leave your thoughts in the comments!