MORE REVIEWS @ https://www.msbreviews.com/ "The King's Daughter is everything viewers expected: a formulaic, uninteresting story filled with old-fashioned cliches and spine-chilling visual effects - not in a good way. Not a single filmmaker and respective creative team deserve to have their work stuck in a seven-year limbo until it's released, let alone due to scheduling and budget issues. However, while the horrible VFX can be forgiven, the disappointing narrative can't be saved, not even by the also underwhelming performances. Pierce Brosnan (False Positive) seems to represent a caricature, while Kaya Scodelario (Crawl) benefits from the release delay, which fortunately didn't negatively impact her early career. The only positive point is that, in fact, it reached the big screen. Too bad it's not worth it." Rating: D-

Must have been tax return time for Pierce Brosnan as he "stars" in this daft historical fantasy about Louis XIV of France and his aspirations for immortality. Egged on by the ambitious "Labarthe" (Pablo Schreiber) he believes that he can live forever if her manages to get hold of a mermaid and - well, he pinches her life force. Snag is, though, his own daughter "Mary-Josephe" (Kaya Scodelerio) is not so supportive of this scheme when she discovers this distressed sea creature and so, of course, off we head into the turbulent waters of familial discord before a whopping great power ballad at the end. William Hurt crops up here, too, and Benjamin Walker provides some eye candy - but the story is Disney-lite, there is way too much verbiage and although Brosnan tries to ham it all up, he just looks like he couldn't care less about any of it - a feeling with which I could pretty readily associate. It does look good, the costumes and Versailles look lovely but the rest of it is straight to video.

King Louis XIV fathered so many bastards even he would have a hard time keeping track. The King’s Daughter (2022) follows one of the lesser known. You may notice that the title is not “La Fille du Roi.” This is because everyone involved is English, American, Australian, Scottish, and even Chinese — that is, anything but French. One can only wonder two things: 1) what would the French think of their most iconic monarch played by Pierce Brosnan, arguably the most British actor possible, and 2) why didn’t they just move the story from France to England? Louis has a mermaid kidnapped and brought to an “underground river” in Versailles to be sacrificed during a solar eclipse so that he can become immortal. The creature “remains on the bottom, weakened and traumatized by her journey … It is as if she has lost the will to live.” It never occurs to anyone that perhaps the change of habitat from saltwater to freshwater could have something to do with the mermaid’s declining health. Shouldn’t this be obvious, even in the 18th century? That notwithstanding, the mermaid is able to save Marie-Josephe’s (Kaya Scodelario) arm from amputation when she enters the water with her. Let’s see; a fantastical, fragile creature that lives in water and has healing powers that can extend people’s age beyond the natural limit. Isn’t that the plot of Cocoon? According to Louis, “the creature is the c…

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