Eye Candy

Rating: 3/10 (25 August 2011)

And like candy neither nutritious nor particularly satisfying. I bought this film at Walmart from the $5 bin, and feel as if I were overcharged (I'm only glad I didn't pay even more to see it in a theater). How a movie with this kind of talent wound up such an unholy mess is baffling.
I suppose the point was that Marie-Antoinette was just an unlucky teenager, but she comes off as vapid as those fashionably dressed adolescents wandering the mall with iPod buds jammed in their ears. You can make a decent teen comedy out that kind of material: it doesn't work so well for creating a tragic heroine. Likewise, deliberate anachronisms can make for successful comedy, but they're downright off-putting in a historical drama. This movie can't decide which it is.
The costumes and sets are dazzling - as I said, eye candy - and some scenes are memorable. The one where Marie crosses the border is brilliant. But the occasional times this movie gets it right just highlights its deficiencies.