This is a vapid costume drama set out in the French renaissance. It features some decent cinematography, beautiful photography and gorgeous costumes. Mélanie Thierry looks incredible, almost edible in her robes of velvet satin, and the movie makers don't miss a chance to reveal her luscious forms.
However, the film bursts like a bubble gum anytime you take the pain to look a bit deeper. The war scenes are totally unhistorical, with armies fighting without any battle line, like drunkards in a tavern brawl, and the top commanders hacking and slashing on the front line instead of organizing the battle from behind.
Most of all, there is little character development and the main character is portrayed in a superficial, contradictory way. On one side she appears as an intelligent, considerate young woman; on the other she betrays a loving and faithful husband and dishonors her name and her family's for a fickle teenager love, after stating several times she won't ever do it. She behaves more like a 14-years-old in love with some pop star. If that's emancipation, we can surely live without it.
In another unlikely scene, the husband's life-long friend, who owes him his life and fortune, betrays his trust and allows the lover in the princess' rooms, with no apparent reason and against his own expressed judgment.
Watch this movie if you like flashing swords, wondrous velvets and vapid, shallow love stories with not much of a plot. Yet if you are a thinking person chances are that you won't get much out of this paltry flick.
However, the film bursts like a bubble gum anytime you take the pain to look a bit deeper. The war scenes are totally unhistorical, with armies fighting without any battle line, like drunkards in a tavern brawl, and the top commanders hacking and slashing on the front line instead of organizing the battle from behind.
Most of all, there is little character development and the main character is portrayed in a superficial, contradictory way. On one side she appears as an intelligent, considerate young woman; on the other she betrays a loving and faithful husband and dishonors her name and her family's for a fickle teenager love, after stating several times she won't ever do it. She behaves more like a 14-years-old in love with some pop star. If that's emancipation, we can surely live without it.
In another unlikely scene, the husband's life-long friend, who owes him his life and fortune, betrays his trust and allows the lover in the princess' rooms, with no apparent reason and against his own expressed judgment.
Watch this movie if you like flashing swords, wondrous velvets and vapid, shallow love stories with not much of a plot. Yet if you are a thinking person chances are that you won't get much out of this paltry flick.