The King's Daughter - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The King's Daughter



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
The King’s Daughter has actually had a rather tumultuous and rocky life before making it to film finally. Based upon Vonda N. McIntyre’s 1997 novel “The and the Sun”, it was originally caught on by Disney at the turn of the century, with Natalie Portman attached as the lead. Then it was bounced around from studio to studio, with no one ever really wanting to put in the effort to make the children’s book into a full fledged movie. Then it languished for years until Paramount actually started filming the movie back in 2014, before it sat on the shelf for another 7 years or so. THEN Indie studio Gravitas Ventures actually bought the rights from Paramount and decided to put the film out in theaters for a limited release back in January, and then farmed out the home video release to Universal (which is strange, as Gravitas Ventures usually has their own home video line as well). The film made less than $2 million at the box office despite being a $40 million film that had been inflated even more after being sold and tossed around to so many studios, so I went into the viewing with some skepticism.

Well, skepticism or not, there’s not a whole lot going on for the movie. It’s a very derivative and amateurish venture right from the start. I can see why the film got bounced around so much, as all it would have taken is a single read of the script to realize that we were talking about a DTV level film with a budget that needed a LOT more effort into the CGI. The story revolves around King Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnan) and his famous search for immortality. The aging king realizes that he’s dying soon, and commissions Captain Yves (Benjamin Walker, of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter fame) to hunt down the lost city of Atlantis and find a mermaid, a being of indescribable healing powers that could grant him the life he so desperately wants to cling to.

However, this is just the start of an overly complex, needlessly dense narrative that’s crammed into less than 90 minutes of actual screen time (pre-credits). Supposedly the king wants to sacrifice the mermaid at a specific time, with the moon in eclipse, so as to gain her powers, but in the interim his daughter (Kaya Scodelario) comes from living at a convent and befriends the mystical beast. There’s a sub plot with a maniacal doctor (Pablo Schreiver), a sympathetic priest (William Hurt) and the relationship between Louis and his daughter. However, this all gets jumbled up into a meat grinder as the film progresses. Very little of what goes on makes much sense, and what does make sense is just the platitudes of a generic morality play about love and caring.

The end is cringe inducing with horrible CGI (seriously, I could do better with Adobe products and my personal PC) and some incredibly pain inducing dialog. I haven’t read the novel from McIntyre before so I’m not aware if the story was this cheesy. Perhaps the story was better in novel form, but from what I can see of the movie I’m not at all shocked that it was bounced around for over 20 years, and made less than 5% of it’s stated budget back at the box office. While it’s not the worst movie ever invented (seriously, there are whole categories of DTV film that would make this seem like a masterpiece), this will go down as one of Hollywood’s biggest box office bombs along with Cutthroat Island (which is actually an awesome cheesy flick).




Rating:

Rated PG for some violence, suggestive material and thematic elements




Video:

The 2.39:1 framed transfer looks, well, adequate, if not a bit inconsistent. The film is highly stylized with overly saturated bright colors for the French court, brilliant blues of the sea, and an almost amber/bronze hue that permeates the entire image. Image detail is inconsistent though, with some scenes being sharp and clean, while others are almost smeared and overly soft, and even just “decently soft” in between as well. Shot to shot the clarity can change, but overall details levels are generally fine. Blacks look a tad crushed and there’s some digital noise in those smeary and dark sequences. The heavy makeup application was a bit distracting, as you could actually see the amber/bronze makeup all over faces, to the point where you can pick up the lines where it ended, and where it began. All in all, it’s a solid middling transfer, but nothing more than.







Audio:

The singular 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a treat though, with a nice bassy undertone (the scene where they capture the mermaid is the best in the film in my opinion), and a rather energetic score. Much of the film can be laid back and very dramatic with a front heavy aspect to the mix, but once Marie starts interacting with the mermaid it picks up quite impressively. The mix is never truly stunning or demo worthy, but checks off plenty of boxes to be a pleasing experience for all involved.












Extras:

• Cast Reflections on The King's Daughter
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

The best thing I can say about The King’s Daughter is that it’s a silly, fluffy, amateurish film whose best feature is that it’s completely unassuming and inoffensive to just about everyone. The flick uses a barely passable fairy tale with even worse dialog and acting and even cheaper CGI to make a flick that is pretty much something to be ignored by everyone but a parent looking for a non offensive digital babysitter. The video is kind of mediocre, audio solid, but the extras are definitely lacking. Personally I would just skip it entirely.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, William Hurt, Kaya Scodelario, Benjamin Walker, Pablo Schreiber, Rachel Griffiths
Directed by: Sean McNamara
Written by: Barry Berman, James Schaumus, Vonda N. McIntyre (Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG
Runtime: 98 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: April 19th, 2022

Recommendation: Skip It.

 

[Epoxy1]

Totally agree about the smearing. It was if Vaseline was on one of the lenses and no body bothered to clean it throughout the production.

One other thing...for a "period piece" the costumes came across as very low budget to me. For example, one of the dresses clearly had a zipper on the back even though the zipper wasn't invented until 1851. I know, I know...I'm being a bit nitpicky

 

[Michael Scott]

lol, I can nitpick too. Although it WAS nice to hear Julie Andrews as the narrator. She always has such a sweet voice