The King's Daughter

The King's Daughter based on the book The Moon and the Sun, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, is one of those films that has seemingly been in the making forever. You can actually go back to 1999 when talk first started. Fast forward to 2022 and The King's Daughter is due to be released on January 21, 2022, by Gravitas Ventures. Since the film is not yet released, I will keep spoilers to an absolute minimum. In somewhat of a revitalisation of his career, Pierce Brosnan stars as King Louis XIV, who after being shot, is convinced by his daughter, that for the betterment of France, he needs to become immortal, so the King sends his men off to find a mermaid, since mermaids are magical, if you sacrifice the mermaid during a solar eclipse, its life force can be transferred to the King, therefore making him immortal. They manage to track down and capture the Mermaid pretty quickly, but then have to wait until the eclipse, so for most of the film the mermaid is kept in an underground pond of sorts. Kaya Scodelario plays Marie-Josèphe, the Kings illegitimate daughter, who finds out about the mermaid and when she sees it, she realises they have a connection, and she befriends her. Throw in a forced marriage to help save the Kingdom, a true love story, and a semi-CGI mermaid played by Bingbing Fan, and you have a rather impressive family fantasy film. At just under 90 minutes, it is the perfect length to hold your attention. This is a proper old-fashioned tale, credible acting, a decent budget, a little bit of magic, likeable characters, this really does hit all the right marks for a good film. The special effects of the mermaid are great, it pretty much stays under water for the whole film, and doesn't speak human language, seemingly communicating telepathically. I was glad they didn't go down all of the classic clichéd routes that mermaid films tend to go, and by not going down that route, it really kept the mystery and magic of the whole mermaid mythology strong. The Good Great acting, lovely story, perfect for the whole family. The Bad Nothing really, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Perhaps the lack of publicity in the US and the UK will hurt sales, I imagine if a big studio like Disney were behind this, it would be on every billboard in town. Overall Hard to dislike this, perfect for the whole family, I highly recommend The King's Daughter. I score The King's Daughter a very strong 9/10

We have sceneries (with mediocre CGI), costumes, extras, a decent cast, even the original Versailles and everything looks as expected, yet it isn’t eye-catching or intriguing. Fantasy needs to inspire and The King’s Daughter simply doesn’t.