***SPOILERS*** After the horrendous piece of junk called "The Swan Princess Christmas", ugh, just saying that hurts, this waste of money was made. Just why? The animation is still plastic-like CGI with stiff moves and awkward facial expressions. Obviously no effort was put into it, so why was it made? Not only that, but the story still contradicts what was established in the first movie: The Forbidden Arts is some kind of a supernatural entity with a mind of its own??? And Odette is apparently an enemy of flying squirrels who plan to destroy her after being manipulated by The Forbidden Arts. Even though I was thoroughly insulted by the Christmas piece of trash, I felt it even more with this one. It does not expand on the original story, it changes it completely! The plot about adopting this girl, Alise, was also painfully uneven and wasn't engaging. The rest is simply put: the music is forgettable generic pop tunes, perhaps a little less auto-tune than in the Christmas abomination, but not at all true to the roots of the original. The animal friends are just there for being there with the same recycled gags. The main characters are either annoying or just not engaging. This is a disgrace and a completely unnecessary sequel.

The first Swan Princess movie wasn't great but it was okay. I thought the same for the second and third movie. The Holiday movie I don't like but this one is even worse.The characters are all flat. They weren't developed anymore and just were stereotypes. The animation is awful. When 3D animation doesn't work it really doesn't work. They look like lifeless statues with hardly any movement or facial features. The voice acting isn't very good. The little girl doesn't seem to be trying and sounds like she wanted to go as soon as possible. The others either try to hard that's when it becomes annoying or they seemed like that read the script wrong and conveyed a different emotion. The story is pretty bad. They're are too many plot holes and questions.Sadly this is very awful. Nothing was trying to be good. Everything failed which brought this movie crashing down.

another Swan Princess CGI garbage?! oh hell no! Richard Rich, why you keeping doing movies in this franchise? why don't you leave it to die already? unfortunately, for people like me, we get tortured again by the newest CGI garbage that goes by the name of "The Swan Princess 5: A Royal Family Tale"... and now, i'm having a really hard time figuring out which one's the worst: "Swan Princess Christmas" or "A Royal Family Tale". anyway, this one takes place sometimes after the last one: Derek and Odette adopt a little girl and all's good, for a little while. then, a bunch of flying squirrels kidnap the little girl, cause they believe in a "corrupted prophecy" that says the swan princess's evil, and for that they kidnap the girl so they can lure Odette to their hideout to kill her. 5 minutes in and we already have a big red flag. so, Derek and Odette go on a trip to save the little girl and Odette, and take down a supposed "evil spirit" called The Forbidden Arts. and this is the second movie in this franchise that almost made me change the channel for about like 20 minutes in. it almost happened in "Swan Princess Christmas" and it almost happened here again. and seriously guys, it's bad! not totally like "Legend of Hercules" bad, but it's up there. from the opening shot of the movie, i was like "god, i really hope this piece-of-s**t CGI gets better". no i was wrong, the CGI was completely terrible. compared to the last one, it was fixed a little. that still don't mean anything, it's still horrible. everything here looks like a cut scene from a PS1 video game, it's really THAT bad. and make it worse is that the movie's just a f***ing mess! i mean, everything here just so damn complicated that you can't tell what's going on. like where the hell did we get the magical changing diamond thing from? it's just randomly there, cause they NEVER mentioned it in the other movies. the whole plot's way too forced and complicated, it's not built and it gave me a serious headache. i was like "Oh, for f**k sake, will this thing stop?" and one of the biggest mistakes this movie makes is that it drowns itself in mythology, along with a lotta exposition. it's like it was trying to "Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit". and the characters... oh my god, the characters! this is probably one of the worst casts of characters i've ever seen! everybody in this movie's incredibly dull, stupid, uninteresting, unlikable, annoying and you don't even care what happens to them. hell, even the new characters suck ass. the little girl's completely shoehorned in the movie and she doesn't have depth or a personality whatsoever; the "scullions" are down right irritating and the villain's one of the worst baddies ever! this guy never does anything throughout the entire movie, aside from blowing up the little girl's house. and i'm done talking about it, for the sake of my sanity, i'm done!final verdict: "Swan Princess 5" is just like "Swan Princess Christmas": ugly, boring, sloppy and just a complete mess. and with a way-too-messy script and terrible, unlikable and uninteresting characters (both old and new) just make the movie a absolute train wreck. so far, this is the WORST animated movie of this year! avoid at all costs!

I have always loved the Swan Princess series. It was my favorite movie as a little girl. Although I will conclude that the first movie is the best in this series, people are giving the sequels reviews that they do not deserve. The introduction of the Scullions adds a new twist to the story. Talking animals are nothing new to this series, but the Scullions show that you believe what you are taught, no matter how absurd it may be. The adoption of Alise allows us to see another side of Derek and Odette that we have not yet seen in the other movies and shows just how strong a parent's love can be for their child. The Prophecy helps explain and clean up several loose ends not covered in the previous films. The Prophecy helps to show why the practitioners of the Forbidden Arts are always trying to kill Odette above all others. The several instances of clean humor give comic relief to the rather serious nature of this movie over the others.Although the voice actors have changed multiple times over the course of the series, they have been able to stay true to personalities the characters.The songs in the movie were artfully done, but I wish that they had been more spread out throughout the movie, and that there were more of them.The Animation has GREATLY improved since the last movie, especially in the rendering of the hair. One thing that I enjoy about this series, and Alise in particular, is that the animators made the characters look human, instead of giving the women large eyes or the children abnormally large heads as have been seen recently. The Forbidden Arts as the villain gives us a BOSS level sort of movie, but the open ending allows for another few movies. It is possible that there are more sorcerers who practice the Forbidden Arts, or that the writers may add in a new power or Villain entirely. No matter how much I love this series and all the movies however, I can not realistically see the series going for more than two or so more movies.