The King's Daughter

LIKES:

The Pace: There is not much to say on this one outside of it is a good pace to be engaging and surprisingly deep in all the characters they put on the screen. The King's Daughter does not gallivant around with long winded speeches, lengthy openings, or even an establishment of kingdoms other fantasy films try to do. It just dives into the stakes, lays them out for what needs to be done, and then starts moving the pieces to the end. Fun, simplistic, and enjoyable, the movie does still give enough time for the audience to get some character depth to at least some of the players in the tale.

The Music: Another movie to fill our ears with a mixture of genres and types, The King's Daughter is one part orchestral piece and one part modern day alternative. The symphony pieces particularly are my favorite as thy really fit into the world being established by the visual elements. Meanwhile, the modern day alternative holds a place for just mixing some of the classical up, while also acting as an emotional stamp to the scene at hand. It's again nothing that is mind blowing, but it fits the bills well for the grand scheme of things.

The Setting: A good fairytale is all about getting the world created for me, and the King's Daughter's budget achieved this goal for me. Though again not the most astounding build and display of movie big budget, the palace of Versailles is spectacular to play host to the story. It's large hallways, the foreboding chambers, even the gardens themselves all feel like an interconnected palace that holds both good and evil amidst its manicured grounds. As for the chambers to which the mermaid is held, again something that would be fun to have as sort of a pool playground, and meets the functionality and purpose that a palace might hold such chambers in. Regardless, the setting really brings the fantasy element to life, and kudos for the attention to details they pulled to get this movie feeling like the hybrid of history and fiction.

The Costumes: Beautiful to say the least, The King's Daughter serves as a fashion display of the courts from long ago, but of course having the modern day fabrics to recreate them. This movie manages to bring the beauty of main characters out in a gorgeous light, filling us with a wardrobe of variety that you could use for your next Halloween soiree. It again fits the high society life, but still has the class status you would expect from the way things operated back in those times. Even more so, the movie also manages to make a farce of the extravagant makeup that was used as well, wielding a sword that cut through the "expectations" and slashing to the core of what that all meant. It's a clever use of costumes, if a bit shallow and simplistic, but just again getting the costumes to look as nice as they did is a nod to the hard work that they did for crafting such fine elements.

The Acting: Hard to pick, but most likely my favorite, the cast of The King's Daughter did a lot of good for the material they were handed. Pierce Brosnan is very elegant and seems to have seated himself on the throne of kingly titles. It's about the same cut he has done in the past few pieces, but I found it a little more grounded and fitting in the complexity of King Louis. Never going too far into overacting, the role has a lot more interaction and credibility than I expected of it, and he pulled it off well. Our lovely mermaid, was not too bad herself, though for high casting call she really did not have the most speaking or even integration compared to the others. Motion capture wise she gets my nod for helping make the mermaid come to life in terms of motion and facial expressions, but that's about it. As for our leads, they are the victors for leading the scenes and really helping establish the dynamic that most will come to see this film for. The male lead is handsome in many physical attributes, but the vulnerability and stalwart bravado are balanced well and make a great male lead that just feels human and is fun. Meanwhile, the lovely leading lady accomplishes much in the film given again the material she had to follow. As the lead of Marie, she held elegance in her mannerisms, and the strength of the girl power movement that is a trend. However, the character is not perfect, and the in your face moments are minimal as she just comes as character struggling to fit into a new world. Her execution is almost flawless, her physical acting quite good in the action and dance scenes, while her delivery is just fantastic in her means to convey her feelings. It was a great performance for a great character, very fitting for the fairytale theme they were going for.

DISLIKES:

Shallow Development: Because it is going for that simple tale approach, the many characters in the movie are rather flat in terms of the depth they could have. There is potential that is met at parts of the movie, but the connective whole of all the players in this game of altered history don't quite feel complete. This is especially true for the mermaid, who has a story, but it's nothing impressive and more a tool and alternate twist approach that is only okay for me. Throw in the darker characters who hold much in the stake of the political affairs, and you again find only half-baked characters who do little to fully mix things up in this tale. More time and more focus could have helped, but in a movie like this that balance could be hard to achieve.

The Action: I know, it's not supposed to be a Marvel movie, but there were plenty of points and use of props that could have given us a little more impasse and challenge to completing the tale. Sadly, the King's Daughter failed to give us a challenge or an exciting conclusion that would leave us remembering the scenes decades later. I again found it fitting, but it seemed a bit too easy int eh grand scheme of things.

A Bit Heavy Handed On The Religious Gestures Given the religion importance of the times, the movie did well with the dialogue for expressing the thoughts and dependence on religion for sovereignty they held. However, sometimes the jokes and the blatant use of the name of God was a little too over the head insulting, and the running jokes got stale. It's a small thing for me, but there was room for better dialogue and a little too much down the line of God.

The Animation of the Mermaid: While it is true that they did better than I could dream of, I can say that The King's Daughter made an interesting choice for bringing the mythological creature to life. We've seen plenty of movies make the half fish/half human characters look real, but this particular one made a CGI digital model that looked a bit off from the actress they casted. It moved beautifully, but there was a lot of things that could have been better with some more time, budget and animation.

The Story: It's sweet, it's motivating, and it's compelling to see these worlds melt together. However, the story is very odd as well and required more time and fleshing out to really maximize it. The two worlds do agree to an extent, but logical gaps, geography limitations, and again a lack of obstacles and stakes blunted the full magic this story could have. When you tie in the religious work ins, minimize the story of the fantasy world to the bare bones and not really incorporate the characters to a stronger extent... the movie's already stretching story is more limited. And of course plenty of plot holes to ignore to make it work.

The VERDICT:

The King's Daughter accomplishes some goals that I did not expect it to accomplish from the trailers. It's a fun pace, with a world that delivers the promise of history and fantasy meeting together, helping immerse you into the world and enjoy the historical culture. With great costumes to fully perform in and look great in, while also having music to help bring the atmosphere up at this time. And the acting is pretty good with the material they were given in this adaptation. However, the movie's budget and attention are noticeable with much of the plot, story, and animation taking a hit and not reaching the full potential I think they wanted. It's certainly not the worst project to come out of the woodwork, but the movie certainly is one that feels appropriate for a streaming service to maximize its potential. From this, my scores are:

Action/Adventure/Family: 6.5 Movie Overall: 6.0.

Some think this might be William Hurt's last movie but it isn't. The filming was done in 2014, seven years before his death, but was only released in 2022. He plays a priest that was the confessor to France's King Louis XIV in the 17th century.

The crux of the story is that the King's doctor thinks Mermaids have a magical quality and if they can catch one and dissect it then they can bestow the King with immortality at the next total solar eclipse, to occur in a few days.

Other than the King, his Confessor, his doctor, and the Mermaid, the pivotal character is a young lady who thinks she is an orphan and has spent her life growing up in a strict convent. She is in fact the King's daughter, her mother died right after childbirth, the public does not know about her. She has always had an affinity for the sea and finds that she and the Mermaid bond easily.

As with all fairy tales there is an underlying message about humanity, in this one it is the King arriving at the point where he no longer cares only about himself. My wife and I enjoyed it at home, streaming on FreeTV with a few commercials. We enjoyed it, we were entertained.

Although I wouldn't consider it a kids movie, or much of a family movie which was what I thought it would be. The topics of conversation at points insinuating very adult things. So it made for an odd mash up, a fairy tale for adults. It was nice to see a high ranking religious official that was truly a good man and not the villain for once. That would have been very clique, and typical of most movies set in this time. Everyone loves to vilify religion, yes I know historically there were, and still are, horrendous acts done in the name of religion but they are few compared to the many that are not. It was just nice to see the good side for once. The overall story was fairly simple, not an action packed adventure. I think a lot of people were bored because they were expecting a swashbuckler or a "man in the iron mask" level of action and depth, leading them to be disappointed. I went into this not having much of an idea what it was, I hadn't seen any type of trailer, or heard anything about it. All I knew was what the info attached said, which wasn't much. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, the acting was good, the visuals were fun. It was well put together and moved at an even pace. For me other was worth the watch.

Just look at that cast: Pierce Brosnan, magnificent as an all powerful yet decadent king, William Hurt, great as always as the king's cardinal, Kaya Scodelario, beautiful as ever, Pablo Schreiber as the villain, Rachel Griffiths in a tiny role, even Fan Bingbing as... the non talking CGI creature?! And it's a fairy tale about Louis XIV's France, shot at Versailles, featuring a mermaid! How can you get this wrong?

And wrong they got it. A complete mess where the only redeeming quality is the acting and interaction of Brosnan and Hurt. It's not unwatchable, but a clear failure. And I get it, really. It's not easy to basically do a Disney film (mermaid, pirates, princesses, pompous figures in fancy clothes) in 2015, especially on a budget and with your parent company delaying the release for seven years. But they could have tried harder, made it a two parter, given the characters time to grow and for the viewers to get attached to them. Instead it feels like a bed time story read by a tired parent who just wants to go to sleep.

William Hurt was a great actor so it's a shame that this was probably his last film.

If you want to see him flex his acting chops , see Body Heat,The Big Chill or Mr Brooks.

A great actor who hopefully be remembered for better things than this movie.

RIP William Hurt.